Town Mouse, Country Mouse by Jan Brett

Jan Brett's adaptation of The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, part of Aesop's Fables is an expanded take on the tale with a humorous and clever ending. Originally, the story consists of two mouse cousins, and focuses only on the country mouse's instances while in town. In this version, the characters are mouse couples and includes experiences from both couples while house swapping.

Although the plot is centered around the mice, there are many other animals that appear in the background and side stories. The illustrations are full page and it's very busy with the main action in the center and subplots on the sides adding a broader view of the landscape as well as the storyline. Each illustrated spread is adorned with very detailed borders that accentuates the settings of the story. The animals have wonderful outfits on; the town animals wear fancy clothes, complete with jewellery while the country animals clothing are rugged and casual. Despite the fact that the animals do wear clothes and have human traits, they also look very realistic.

Jan Brett has illustrated thirty-eight children's books with forty-one million in print. This title as well as The Hat, The Mitten and Beauty and the Beast are my top picks from her series of books. Recommended for ages 4+.

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G.P. Putnam's Sons 1994
Hardcover 32p
10.7" × 8.7"

The Complete Brambly Hedge by Jill Barklem

Some time in the late 1990's I had come across a stop motion television program about a hedgerow community of mice. It was not particularly enjoyable so I didn't look into the books. Decades later, I came across Brambly Hedge once again but this time in book form. I was amazed; it was so different than I had remembered. It was so much better! If these books had been made for television using traditional animation or CGI, I probably would have found it more entertaining. The stop motion technique is really stiff and unfitting when the story revolves around quick moving rodents.

The Complete Brambly Hedge is written and illustrated by Jill Barklem (1951-2017). Barklem studied illustration at Saint Martin's School of Art in London, United Kingdom. It is during her commute to school there that she first conceived the world of Brambly Hedge. She spent five years researching prior to writing her first story and it is also her interest in natural history that makes her illustrations so accurate and detailed. Her illustration style resemble that of another British artist whose work I am fond of, Cicely Mary Barker. Barklem's paintings are however, superior, being a lot more detailed and with more variety of subject matter. Some of the best illustrations in this book are of the tree interiors. These are the homes and buildings of Brambly Hedge where the mice live and work. They have multiple rooms and tunnels; some are cozy and some are extravagant. There are a lot of pictures in this book, almost filling every page.

The Complete Brambly Hedge is a collection of eight stories: Spring Story, Summer Story, Autumn Story, Winter Story, The Secret Staircase, The High Hills, Sea Story, and Poppy's Babies. I prefer all the stories in one book as it saves space but these are published separately as well with slip cases for the newer sets. The book presented here is the 2011 edition. The text is large and the paper has a good weight. The stories are sweet and written with a child's view of the world set in the countryside. There is no danger of predators, the mice live idyllic lives. Each individual story reading length is about five minutes.

The Brambly Hedge series of books, first published in 1980, have sold over seven million copies worldwide and the characters have also been produced as collectible pieces. Recommended for ages 4+.

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HarperCollins 2011
Hardcover 248p
7.5" x 10.1"