When a mouse gets into his house, a boy is faced with his hysterical mother demanding that he kill the creature. He’s standing with raised shoe, ready to deal the death blow, when the little mouse begins to speak. She begs to be granted three wishes: some pop, some cheese, and a chance to tell her story. Reluctantly, the boy agrees and ends up listening to the mouse’s long tale of adventure and woe: of her family’s proud lineage in Old Quebec, of their move from the city to the country, of her father’s murder by cats, and of her and her mother’s lonely travels searching for a new home. In the end, the mouse’s persuasive powers prevail and the boy fakes her death to satisfy his mother. In payment for being allowed to stay, the mouse tells him stories every night. The mouse’s name? Scheherazade.

Sheree Fitch’s clever story plays with several mouse traditions as well as the Scheherazade story, and incorporates familiar nursery rhyme characters such as the three blind mice (whom Scheherazade claims are her cousins). The rodent raconteuse is a charming character who offers both the boy and the reader a mouse’s-eye view of the world: “I’m so sorry about your mother/You know, I’ve got one too/And you should see what she does/When she catches sight of you!” The incessant double chorus of the boy’s mother asking if he has killed the mouse yet and the mouse’s mother asking if they can stay creates a comic symmetry between the two main characters. Although the rhythm of Fitch’s verse occasionally stumbles, the vitality of the story more than makes up for this flaw. Watts’s warm and playful illustrations are full of visual jokes (like the Canadian flag with a mouse on it instead of a maple leaf). Mouse lovers young and old will chuckle over this book.