The Mousewife - Hardcover

Godden, Rumer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670491489 ISBN 13: 9780670491483

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers, 1957

Synopsis

Day in and day out the dutiful mousewife works alongside her mousehusband. The house of Miss Barbara Wilkinson, where the Mouses make their home, is a nice house and the mousewife is for the most part happy with her lot—and yet she yearns for something more. But what? Her husband, for one, can’t imagine. “I think about cheese,” he advises her. “Why don’t you think about cheese?”

Then an odd and exotic new creature, a turtledove, is brought into the house, and the mousewife is fascinated. The mousewife makes friends with the strange dove, who is kept in a cage but who tells her about things no housemouse has ever imagined, blue skies, tumbling clouds, tall trees, and far horizons, the memory of which haunt the dove in his captivity. The dove’s tales fill the mousewife with wonder and drive her to take daring action.

Rumer Godden’s lovely fable about the unexpected ways in which dreams can come true is illustrated with beautiful pen-and-ink drawings by William Pène du Bois.

About this title

About the Author

Rumer Godden (1907–1998) grew up in India, where her father ran a steamship company. She wrote more than sixty books for adults and young adults, several of which, including An Episode of Sparrows, and The Mousewife have been published in The New York Review Children’s Collection.
 
Adrienne Adams (1906–2002) was a children’s book illustrator who won two Caldecott Honors (for Alice E. Goudey’s Houses from the Sun in 1959 and The Day We Saw the Sun Come Up in 1961) and the Rutgers Award for her contribution to children’s literature. She illustrated more than thirty books, including the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm.

Review

"Rumer Godden has scaled her story perfectly and has written it in bright, lucid prose...it will give the reader suspense in miniature and [a] sense of comfort." —The New York Times

"The story's details are chosen with precision, and Godden gets the balance just right in her portrayal of her mouse characters: they act both like real mice (shredding the contents of the Mouse House to make a cozy nest) and people (two of Bonnie's sisters make dolls out of silk flowers). Adams's illustrations are old-fashioned but lively, perfect for this small-scope but very satisfying adventure." —Martha V. Parravano, The Horn Book Magazine

"Rumer Godden has combined imagination and realism to produce a children's book of charm and originality." —Globe and Mail

"Tiny Bonnie, the littlest mouse in the family that lived in the cracked flower pot in the cellar of Mary's house, crept upstairs to find a place to sleep one night. She found a real mouse house with tiny beds in the miniature house Mary was given for Easter. Bonnie slept in the miniature bed and tipped over chairs and tables when morning came and she couldn't get out. After Bonnie's visit, Mary relegated the little house to the basement, which provided a comfortable mouse haven." —Kirkus Reviews

"Rumer Godden is magic." —Palm Springs Desert Sun

"She has a wonderful way with fictional children, tender and true and never sentimental." —Orville Prescott, The New York Times

"...an extraordinarily gifted writer who manages to infuse her novels with a special magic of their own." —Boston Herald

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 1957
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670491489
• ISBN 13: 9780670491483
• Binding: Hardcover