Bless This Mouse, by Lois Lowry

Bless This Mouse, by Lois Lowry is a cute children's book about some darling church mice and their adventures trying to stay alive and hidden.  The Mouse Mistress, Hildegarde, is sensible, caring and cautious and the other mice would be lost without her.  Lucretia doesn't quite see that though and thinks that she, in fact, would make a better Mouse Mistress.  Hildegarde doesn't have time to worry about that though, with so many mice to protect and fear of the, "Great X," looming over them with every mouse misstep.  She's always doing her best to protect the group with her quick thinking and wise solutions.  She works very hard not only for their lives, but to protect their place in the beautiful church.  All the mice love to listen attentively every Sunday and they know all the hymns by heart.  Hildegarde especially loves the beautiful gold threads of Father Murphey's chasuble and the privacy she's claimed for herself in the sacristy.  Everyone does their best to stay hidden in the walls and clean up after themselves.  They even take care to control the population as well and since Millicent keeps having litters, the Mouse Mistress often has some scolding to do, but all-in-all, it's a good life.  The preschoolers always drop cookie crumbs and Father Murphey usually spills a little wine and leaves a supply of gumdrops in the sacristy too.  As long as they're careful...  they can live there happily forever.  I really liked this book and I've always been a fan of Lois Lowry's writing style, so this was a lucky find through NetGalley.  There were a few missing illustrations in my copy, so that was the only disappointment for me, because they were really cute and thoughtfully placed, so I wanted to see all of them.  This would be a great book to add to your or your children's bookshelf and I would recommend it mostly for children or for story time, but it would also be enjoyed by any fans of Lois Lowry, personification of animals, stories involving church, or stories about acceptance.

Favorite things:  the beautiful and often funny writing style of Lois Lowry, the cute illustrations that brought a smile to my face, the different personalities of the various mice, the elements of bravery and wit, the funny solutions the mice came up with for their problems and the overall message of acceptance and equality.

Criticisms:  the targeted demographic for this book is a bit younger than I like to read and younger than most of my favorites by Lois Lowry, so that was a personal disappointment for me, but there were some humorous moments and great characters to give it a bit more depth than your typical children's book, so that was okay after all and then there were quite a few church-related terms for me to learn and since I wasn't too good at remembering which area was which it gave me a foggy mental image at times.

Overall: 4 out of 5 stars!  Pretty good for what it was, but a bit of a stretch from my personal reading tastes.

Note:  I was able to read this ebook from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.  I did not pay for this book, however that did not affect my opinion or review in any way.