Suitable for children in Year 1 (age 5), Atul's Christmas Hamster is from the Cambridge Reading genre strand Narrative Recounts - a strand which motivates children to explore their personal responses and make links to their own experiences.

Each story in this set of nine marks a significant event from someone's childhood.

While some of the stories are set in modern Britain, others take place in the 1930s or 1940s in locations as diverse as Hong Kong and Trinidad.

Retold by Richard Brown, this is a true story about Atul Pandy.

It happened in 1973, when Atul and his family were living in Cambridge.

One day, when Atul was six, a friend showed him his hamster.

On Christmas morning there was a big parcel under the tree.

Was it the hamster Atul wanted so much?