Mouse's Night Before Christmas

by Tracey Corderoy, Sarah Massini (Illustrator)

Overview

It's Christmas Eve, and everyone is fast asleep except for a lonely mouse that lives in the grandfather clock. When Santa arrives, lost in a blizzard and called by Mouse’s wish, it’s Mouse who is there to show Santa the way. Together they embark on a magical sleigh ride, delivering presents all around town. But the best present of all is for Mouse: his wish to make a new friend to share Christmas Day with has finally come true.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536214406
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	10/13/2020
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	217,895
Product dimensions:	10.19(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.42(d)
Age Range:	2 - 5 Years

About the Author

Tracey Corderoy is the author of the Hubble Bubble books, as well as Just Right for Two and The Boy and the Bear. As a teacher with a passion for literature, her head is crammed with countless ideas and stories. She lives in a valley in Gloucestershire, England, with her husband, two children, and an ever-increasing menagerie of cute but sometimes naughty pets.

Sarah Massini's love of drawing has seen her through careers in corporate and children’s book design. She has illustrated The Boy and the Bear by Tracey Corderoy as well as The Velveteen Rabbit. Sarah Massini lives in Sussex, England, with her husband, her young son, and their utterly mad terrier, Tess, who stands guard as she draws.

Editorial Reviews

If you give a mouse a friend, you get a happy ending to a new take on an old Christmas favorite.
—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2020-08-18
What if a mouse was stirring on Christmas Eve?

Corderoy’s text opens with lines from “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” but it quickly shifts to tell quite a different tale: “On that night before Christmas, / dear reader, you see, / there was one little mouse / as awake as could be.” Sadly, this stirring Mouse is lonesome on Christmas Eve, so he makes a wish on the star at the top of a Christmas tree for a friend. No sooner does he do so than “a clatter” arises outside. There, Mouse finds Santa calling his reindeer by name to make sure they’re all accounted for after his sleigh is grounded by a storm. Santa and his team are lost, so Mouse offers to help guide them through the neighborhood to make sure all of the children receive their presents. Massini’s art makes terrific use of rich, black, nighttime skies in contrast with the white snowfall, rooftops, and landscape below, and Santa’s sleigh itself seems made of starlight as it sails through the air. Mouse’s wish is granted at the book’s end, with Santa gifting him not one but two pairs of skates—the second pair for a new friend who shared the very same wish Mouse made earlier.

If you give a mouse a friend, you get a happy ending to a new take on an old Christmas favorite. (Picture book. 3-7)

Kirkus Reviews

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