Elaine Williams

Arturo is a mouse with a difference, his nightly searches are not for food but for all sorts of different items to decorate his mousehole - "pencils and screws, and buttons and pins, paper and wool, and shells and balloons, Lego and crayons, and rings and spoons." When he finds some red glitter glue, he is so excited that he forgets about the need to be quiet. His delighted squeaks alert the cat, Balou, and so the chase begins! Read on to see how Arturo uses a safety pin, doll's hat, cushion, toy car wheel and toy boat sail to aid his escape.
This is Elaine Williams' first children's book and a very good first book it is. The rhyming text bounces along, gaining pace as the chase heats up. The illustrations by Hannah Sames are full of character and I particularly enjoyed seeing the interior of Arturo's mousehole with all his purloined treasures. I was a bit confused by a section of text that describes Arturo parachuting from a table and landing on a ledge then zip-wiring down a curtain string. The text seems to suggest he went from the table to the window ledge but the picture shows the table as lower than the window ledge (as you would expect). While this anomaly bothered me, I'm sure it wouldn't worry the intended audience, they would be too engrossed by the story.… (mer)