As someone whose family have watched over hedgehogs in our back garden and even rescued a few sick ones, there isn't much in this book that was surprising to me, though a couple of the details about diet (why exactly cat and dogfood may not be best for them, for example) were new. I mostly wanted to see if it's worth gifting to other people -- and I think it is. The illustrations are cute and full of detail, and all the information accords with what I know.

I can definitely attest that the methods for nurturing a hedgehog presence described here work: my parents built a hedgehog hotel and a hedgehog feeding station in their garden some years back, along with creating holes in the fences for them to travel through and ensuring a good range of cover and a source of water. Now my dad spends spring, summer and autumn evenings getting up to put out extra food for late-coming hedgehogs who get mad about the slow table service. Despite hedgehogs' solitary nature, my parents' garden is much in demand, and sometimes you'll see a queue. (I'm really not kidding.)