Mice in The Heronry – 15 March 2025

A few days ago, I opened the fridge only to discover a mouse sitting next to my oat milk. Fetching more tote bags, I was greeted by a mouse nestled amongst the herons, quite unafraid. One popped up in Harry’s coat pocket. Another was sunbathing in the window under a daffodil. I suspect there to be more, perhaps between the pages of Brambly Hedge, Alice in Wonderland and The Tale of Desperaux or reading Spiegelman and Steinbeck.

Rarely has a mouse infestation brought such delight.

The latest Adventuremice book is out and we have been preparing for it very sensibly: we have fought over which is our favourite character and hidden a lot of (cardboard) mice around the shop. If you have yet to take to the high seas with Pedro, now is the time. While aimed at those getting into their first chapter books, I defy anyone not to fall in love with the writing and the artwork. The mice have travelled to the depths of the ocean to solve a mermouse mystery, saved the day at the Frost Fair, uncovered the truth behind the legend of Captain Cheesebeard and even gone to the moon.

Now, in Adventuremice: Mice, Camera, Action, the mice have been invited to Hollybush where a film is being made about their escapades. The director fully expects to win a Golden Biscuit at the Cans Film Festival, if only things would run to time. But Pedro finds the movie business Very Confusing Indeed – why do they need someone called Tufty Crumble to pretend to be him? And why is no one worried by that massive otter…?

In case you have read the whole series so many times that you know it by heart – although who could tire of characters like Fledermaus even then – may I suggest a few other adventures on which to go:

Marty Moose (don’t be fooled: it’s just a name) has just taken on the role of Postmouse. He looks the part in his smart red suit. He’s raring to go. But delivering letters can become tricky when the recipients live, literally, in a warren.

In Katya Balen’s new book, Mattie Robbins is gazing up at the sky from her (extremely cool, stocked with beanbags, books and sweets) treehouse and wishing desperately for a puppy. When a new vet arrives, with all the animals she has rescued in tow, her pockets overflowing with mice and a goat named Bruno chewing everything in sight, Mattie spots an opportunity to play with a lot of creatures and to help the human residents of Mossdale Village. The Appletree Animal Agency is born. Features an epic chase after a very clever ferret.

Quests for the more lowkey adventurer are offered by Alice Melvin’s Mouse by the Sea and by Jarvis’ latest instalment of Bear and Bird. The former is for the mice who enjoy a stroll along a promenade, ice cream in paw, or spotting animals and plants in rockpools. The latter is for those seeking the kind of friendship where testing puddles for sploshyness or visiting Mouse’s story truck are all-consuming activities.

In a beautiful and edgy graphic novel for those aged 11 and upwards, I Go Quiet by David Ouimet, an anxious girl explains her struggles with the noise of everyday life. Sometimes, she goes quiet and mouselike. But through books she finds her own way to make her voice heard.

Meanwhile, I have been at sea this week with Twist by Colum McCann. Anthony Fennell is a novelist and playwright but recently characters have deserted him. ‘All the truth,’ is his father’s verdict on his latest book, ‘but none of the honesty.’ While searching for a story about connections, about grace, he agrees to write a piece for a magazine on the wires at the bottom of the ocean which carry the world’s internet traffic and on the crews which must fix any breakages if life as we know it is to keep going.

He joins the crew of the Georges Lecointe, sailing from Cape Town, with repair missions led by a man named John A. Conway. From Fennell’s point of view, it’s a story of waiting: for a break to occur, for the ship to leave the dock, for the discovery of the fault, for Conway to act. And yet, I found my heart beating fast, my anticipation unabated: the unfolding of events aboard the ship, mixed with Fennell looking back from a few years later, is beautifully paced, the dialogue clever, often misdirecting both characters and reader, the descriptions of the ocean luminous yet dark.

Conway is a freediver, able to descend to extraordinary depths and hold his breath for several minutes. He is in harmony with the sea, calmed by its vast depths and the worlds they contain where Fennell is not. Conway too has dark chasms into which Fennell can only offer glimpses, leaving the reader to piece together the rest.

Falling from heights rather than diving through depths, I find myself asking what greater caper there could be than into The Theory of General Relativity. Einstein in Kafkaland: How Albert Fell Down the Rabbit Hole and Came Up with the Universe by Ken Krimstein is a graphic history/biography of the year 1911-1912 in which a frustrated patent clerk and an ambitious young insurance executive overlapped with one another in Prague, both searching for answers as to what knowledge of the universe is possible. Drawing from diaries, lectures and a little imagination, the skeleton of Prague’s famous astronomical clock tells the story of a transformative time for Einstein and Kafka.

We hope to see you tonight when we venture into the poetry of U. A. Fanthorpe and John Greening. John will be reading from his new edition of Fanthorpe and his own poetry collection, The Interpretation of Owls. Owls and mice will be kept separate. Do join us from 5pm.  

May your weekend be full of adventure(mice),
Lizzie