Gingerbread Mouse

On a snowy winter's night, Mouse is snug in her bed . . .

Then—crack!—a tree branch falls and destroys her house. Now Mouse must find a new place to live. With determination, resourcefulness, and some Christmas good fortune, Mouse finds not only another house but also a place she can truly call home.

Publishers Weekly

When a branch crashes into Mouse's home, she must search for new digs. Peeking through the window of a human's abode, she spies the perfect replacement: a gingerbread house. Half the fun of Bratun's (Jack and the Leprechaun) book is looking at the furnishings Mouse rigs up out of matchboxes, bottle caps, candy and the like. The clever, mouse-size bric-a-brac and cute, costumed mouse recall Cyndy Szekeres's settings-except for the addition of a few less convincingly rendered humans. Kids who like dolls and miniatures will savor this cheery offering, especially when Santa arrives and bestows upon the heroine a more permanent home, in the form of a handsome Victorian dollhouse. Ages 6-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Katy Bratun studied illustration at the Art Institute of Boston and has illustrated twenty books for children. She once drew a gorilla in a gondola at a school assembly, which later posed as a character for this book. Ms. Bratun lives in Salem, Massachusetts, with her husband, Steve, and her son, Eric.