This is a fun children's book, part of a series about a girl who babysits for monsters. Various species of bizarre aliens live in her neighbourhood, and most of them never get the chance to go out unless Nelly is there to keep an eye on their child.

But in this case, what four-headed Pummice and his wife Groot need Nelly to take care of is their pet, Glug: a prize-winning 'Golden Revolver' who is being prepared for a show the next day. Entertaining a dog-like alien with teeth as sharp as a shark's, whose idea of chasing a stick is to reduce an entire tree-trunk to sawdust in minutes, is hard work, but hardly alarming to someone whose own pet rabbit is nearly as ferocious. But when Glug runs away, Nelly has serious worries.

I would probably have found this book more gripping if I were in the intended reading age, but even for adults, it's a relaxingly light-hearted story for comfort reading. One thing I found perplexing - and probably would have found equally strange if I had been reading this as a child - is the idea that 12-year-old Nelly and her twin sister are too young for their own parents to leave them unattended, but at the same time, Nelly is old enough to look after other people's children. Still, if you can suspend your disbelief enough to accept multiple species of monsters living in the same small town but still being isolated enough that nobody except Nelly is willing to babysit for them (why don't they babysit for each other?), this is a minor grumble. After all, no-one said stories have to be realistic.

Another book for the shelf.

Now gone from the shelves