Shortlisted for the Costa Children's Book Award 2016 | One of our Books of the Year 2016 | Longlisted for the UKLA 2017 Book Award and Shortlisted for The Branford Boase Award 2016. January 2016 Debut of the Month This clever, touching time travel adventure owes as much to The Railway Children as it does to Back to the Future! Al (for Albert, after Einstein) Chaudhury’s dad is dead but – and here’s where it gets really interesting – a physicist, he’d already been experimenting with time travel and, realising what is going to happen, left instructions enabling his son to go back in time and prevent the childhood accident that will ultimately kill him. Huge congratulations to Ross Welford for observing all the rules of time travel (never easy and he manages a sly dig at Dr Who!) and constructing a terrific adventure that puts family relationships, particularly male ones, at its heart. ~ Andrea Reece
Costa judges' comment: “A highly accomplished debut, genuinely enjoyable for both a child reading independently and an adult reading with a child.”
For readers who loved Wonder and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time this extraordinary debut will make you laugh and cry. A story that crosses time and generations, for adventure-loving readers young and old. My dad died twice. Once when he was thirty nine and again four years later when he was twelve. On Al Chaudhury's twelfth birthday his beloved Grandpa Byron gives him a letter from Al's late father. In it Al receives a mission: travel back to 1984 in a secret time machine and save his father's life. Al soon discovers that time travel requires daring and imagination. It also requires lies, theft, setting his school on fire and ignoring philosophical advice from Grandpa Byron. All without losing his pet hamster, Alan Shearer...Time Travelling With a Hamster is a funny, heart-warming race-against-time - and across generations - adventure that you will won't be able to put down.
'The gripping suspense truly makes time fly... the book's heart and humour are hard to resist.' Piers Torday, author of The Last Wild
'Extremely clever and totally engaging. The Irish Times Intelligent, well crafted and impressive.' Nicolette Jones, The Sunday Times
'A touching tale of family, grief and love.' Daily Express
Author
About Ross Welford
Ross Welford was a journalist and television producer before becoming a full-time writer. He lives in London with his wife, children, a border collie and several tropical fish. This is his first novel.
