Poppy, mouse heroine from previous book, travels in the company of her grumpy porcupine friend to find her deceased boyfriend’s family. She wants to inform them what happened to him. She finds the family in great distress. They’ve lived for years peacefully by a small brook, but now a group of beavers has moved in, built a dam and flooded the area. The golden mouse family moved uphill to live under a rock, but it’s crowded and damp and they very much resent what the beavers have done. Being confronted, the beavers spout a bunch of aphorisms about progress and basically ignore the fact that they’ve inconvenienced and displaced a bunch of other animals. The mice are despondent, don’t know what they can do. Poppy arrives with the bad news of the oldest brother’s death. She meets Rye, the next-oldest brother, who looks a lot like her prior boyfriend, but is much more sensitive and thoughtful. They feel an instant attraction (they both love to dance) but also feel emotional turmoil- Poppy feels weird about liking Rye, having so recently lost his brother. Rye for his part, had for many years resented the way the deceased mouse treated him, and was jealous of him as well, so he feels relieved he’s gone, but guilty about that. Quite a complicated thing. But they have to put all this aside to face their immediate problems with the beavers. The mice are so small the beavers just laugh and think they can shove them out, but Poppy is quite brave and resourceful. When Rye goes by himself to talk to the beavers and gets into trouble, she goes to rescue him. Failing that, she comes back and pleads with the family for help. She’s appalled when it becomes clear that they intend to just give up and move away. Only a few of the younger mice agree to join her efforts in returning to free Rye. Their bravery puts the parent mice to shame, who come up with a plan that will use the group strength of some forty mice (all their children, granchildren, etc) to resist the beavers. It looks like all this will fail too, but then at the very last moment guess who shows up to save the day. That grumpy porcupine, who had been sulking in the woods because he thought Poppy forgot about him, and reluctantly admits that he considers her a friend after all.
I was actually quite impressed that this book for kids dealt with such topics- the troublesome feelings of loosing someone you both loved and resented, jealousy within the family, apathy in the face of big problems, the blustering aggressive techniques of the beavers, their disregarding anyone they could bully to just do what they wanted, altering the environment all around. It was admirable that the mice finally stood up to the beavers with their united strength, but also turned the last few chapters of the story into a battle of sorts, which was less interesting to me. It shouldn’t feel more unrealistic than talking animals and mice who wield porcupine quills as swords, but it did stretch things a bit for me. I’m sure the excitement of the battle would appeal to the younger readers though.
Borrowed from the public library. Completed on 5/7/24.
