Bless This Mouse by Lois Lowry

This was a charming and delightful little book.  It is a story of a colony of church mice. Hildegarde is a mature and wise matronly mouse who leads the colony.  The mice have two great dangers. The first is the Feast of St. Francis, when parishioners can bring their pets, including cats, to be blessed by the priest.  The second is, of course, the "Great X". Hildegarde has to be careful that the pastor never sees more than one mouse at a time, or he will order the exterminator, the Great X. Of course, in the course of the story, the pastor does order the Great X, but Hildegarde is able to outsmart the exterminator and save her colony.  This would be a great book to read to small children, a chapter a night.  The characters are charming, and the danger is never very intense. It is illustrated by Caldecott winner, Eric Rohmann.  Of course, if you actually have a mouse problem, and have to set out traps in your own home, this may be one to avoid unless you want to traumatize your children. (151 p)

Our library recently announced that Lois Lowry will be visiting this fall.  In anticipation of that, I decided to read as many Lois Lowry books as I can over the summer.  Of course, I have read her most famous books, The Giver and its sequels, and Number the Stars, but it has been fun to read some of her other works.