December Books, Day Four: The Church Mice at Christmas

“And next day they rounded up the mice with the loudest voices. They spent the whole morning practicing their scales and the whole afternoon sorting out the pronunciation of Wenceslas, and by the time it was dark, they were ready.”

The Church Mice at Christmas, by Graham Oakley (also here), was published in 1980 but has been reprinted this year by Templar books.  More details here.  According to the Templar website, "the Church Mice series has been nominated for two Kate Greenaway Medals, won a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book award and sold over one and a half million books worldwide."

The Church Mice books are picture books for all ages, lots of fun and just twisted enough to keep even older kids and adults interested.  (Just saying "Ladies and gentlemen--the moon!" can still make members of the Squirrel family laugh.)  They concern the misadventures of the mice inhabiting an English church, and an often-exasperated cat who lets them push him around...but only so far. 

The Church Mice at Christmas (images from the book here) is about the mice deciding that they should have a Christmas party...and trying to get the money and other things to come together to make that happen.  As in most of the books, their big efforts--including raffling off the cat--turn into total disaster...but the party is saved in the end by something unexpected (actually by Humphrey's big mouth--for once).

Favourite parts:

What the vicar REALLY watches on TV at Christmas

The mice playing in the toy shop, and almost getting bought as "lovely little stocking-fillers"

The detailed view of the Christmas hamper (when else would you be delighted to see a basket of food being swarmed by mice?)

The mice rolling on their sides reading bad Christmas-cracker jokes

The burglar's little Christmas party in jail

But the best and most Church-mice-ish line is...

"Carol singing had seemed a really good plan in the vestry....But as Humprey said afterwards, 'Everybody knows that the best laid schemes o' mice an' thingummies gang aft a-gley.'"

Yep.