The Train Mouse
Uwe Timm, illustrated by Axel Scheffler
Andersen Press

Translated by Rachel Ward, this is a new edition of Uwe Timm’s book first published in German in the 1980s that has now been given wonderful new witty illustrations by Axel Scheffler.

The story’s narrator is Stefan aka Nibbles aka The Train Mouse.

Nibbles had started life in the cellar of a house in Munich but redevelopment causes the mice to seek a new abode. As a result his family have to go out foraging for food in various parts of the city including the station.

For Nibbles, this accidentally leads to 18 months of journeying back and forth between Hamburg and Cologne in a train carriage.

One day though, the narrator hears the word Switzerland and he boards an Intercity train

bound to the country he considers mouse heaven. It’s at Basel his destination, that he meets another mouse named Wilhelm and has his dream about this new place well and truly shattered.

A new train takes them to their next stop, Paris, but the place is ridden with cats and Nibbles has no love of danger. Home and family beckon.

After more travelling and further fur-raising adventures both Nibbles and Wilhelm make it back to Hamburg

and thence to the Paradise Street home Nibbles had left so long back. But where is his family? Will they ever be re-united?

Perseverance, courage, resilience and friendship are at the heart of this charming and unusual reworking of the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse tale for primary age readers.