A middle grades book that is rated "Not Too Scary," I bought this book in hopes that it would intrigue any one of my children. Somehow it managed to stay on the shelf so I thought I'd take it down, read it, and see if I could recommend it to them. I am pleased to say that this was indeed a cute book that is liable to appeal to all of the residents under five feet here.
Hermux Tantamoq is a mouse who works in a watch and clock shop. He takes great pride in his work and so is a little put off when daredevil aviatrix Linka Perflinger leaves her watch to be repaired, admonishing Hermux that it must keep perfect time, and them fails to return to pick it up. He knows something is wrong when a less than savory rat asks for Linka's watch and so this mild-mannered mouse decides to follow the rat and see where he goes. This plunges him into a kidnapping mystery with a biological bent. The characters surrounding Hermux are eccentric and fun. The evil villains are ruthless and sneaky. The plot zips along at a good clip with revelations, both expected and unexpected, coming fast and furious. Hoeye leaves a trail of clues for an astute reader to solve the mystery but I must admit I'm not that reader, even when the book is written for children less than half my age. But even though I didn't figure out the entirety of the whodunit, I thoroughly enjoyed this adventurous and delightful novel. It reminded me of nothing so much as the wonderful, from-my-childhood movie The Rescuers in tone and flavor. The first in a series, I hope to convince the kiddos to read it while I move along to the second.
I hadn't heard of this one, but I think my daughter would enjoy it. I'll see if our library carries it. Thanks for the review!
ReplyDelete--Anna
Diary of an Eccentric
I had some fans of the series at my K-6 library, but I never tried it. I hadn't thought it was a mystery...one of the fantasy genre, I'd thought.
ReplyDeleteWell, with a mouse as protagonist, it certainly is fantasy but I think there's a lot of mystery elements in it too. Of course, I'm not a mystery reader so perhaps I'm off on that assessment. I don't think it's a traditional mystery necessarily but since Hermux is investigating and small bits are revealed slowly until the end, it works to classify it thusly for me. :-)
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