["The Star Beast" tells the story of] an octopod, six-ton, talking creature who was the very special pet of John Thomas Stuart XI of Westville, Planet Earth. One day, waiting for John and his friend Betty to fly home from school, Lummie began eating the neighbor's rosebushes. Mrs. Donahue drove him away with a broom and thereby started him on an innocently destructive tour of the town….

The small town clash … soon reached interstellar proportions, full of surprises.

Mr. Heinlein's name on a book of science fiction is sure to make young space-eaters reach for it, and this one, written with his usual deftness and fine sense of humor, will not disappoint them.

Iris Vinton, "Visitor From Outer Space," in The New York Times Book Review, Part II (© 1954 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), November 14, 1954, p. 10.