5: Plot! Character! Action!
This book is a rare treasure, perfectly pitched to read aloud to my five-year-old boys.
First, it's a lovely tale, perfectly combining gentle, humourous real world observation (hotels, vacuum cleaners) with just enough fantasy elements to keep childish imagination tantalised (a talking mouse! who rides a motorbike!).
Most appealing of all are Cleary's full, three-dimensional characters - just as I remember from my own earth-shattering discovery of Ramona decades ago. You can't help but relate to a mouse who experiences envy, shame, and guilt - and thereby reflects a real-world humanity that is either entirely absent. or treated ham-fistedly in so many other books for this age. More than adding to our enjoyment of the story, I loved the fact that this quality introduces my children to what literature can be - not merely a diversion, but a call to reflection, showing you the ordinariness of your foibles, and the possibilites for redemption.
Then of course (of greater interest to them than to me) was the action. The machine-centric obsession, the necessity of speed and bravery, the near misses - all the heroic theatrics close to most young boys' hearts.
I wish I'd bought the whole trilogy at once. We will return to this book many times.
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