This book comes first chronologically in the Poppy stories (but a lot of readers advise you read them in the order they were published). It’s a prequel to Poppy. The story of Ragweed, that mouse with the city accent, before he met Poppy. Before he had been to the city, even.
When the novel opens, Ragweed is a young mouse eager to leave his home nest and see the world. He wanders a lot, encountering a few other animals, then hops a train (not knowing what it is at all) and ends up in a city. In a rundown part of town with a large population of mice. Ragweed is quickly befriended by a young mouse named Clutch whose conversation is so full of local slang that he can barely understand her. So much here is new to Ragweed- from the buildings and strange human objects, to novel foods like cheese, alien concepts like music, and even things the mice make and use. Clutch wears jewelry, has a guitar made from a spoon and a skateboard crafted from a popsicle stick. Her father paints and her mother writes poetry. There’s a mouse club where they gather in crowds to eat and dance. Ragweed finds it both exciting and overwhelming. But he’s taken aback to learn that they all live in fear of cats- two cats in particular. This white cat has a huge grudge against mice and keeps coming in to wreck their club. Ragweed rouses the mice to find a way to fight back against the cats, because though small, they have strength in numbers.
I found the whole storyline plenty interesting, especially because some parts are told from the cat’s viewpoint, and others from the perspective of a white pet mouse, that was raised in captivity and knows even less about the outside world than Ragweed knew of the city. The white mouse escapes the house and ends up with Ragweed and company, and has a significant part to play in what happens. I’m glad that in the end he turned out not to be a traitor after all. But there was an awkward little love triangle happening, when Ragweed, who had been admiring Clutch (mostly as a friend) realizes that the white mouse likes her too, and decides he’d better leave because he was in the way. At the end of the book, he’s feeling kind of adrift- he doesn’t want to go back to the country life he left behind, but doesn’t really fit in with the city mice either. He’s striking out again . . . See the next book!
Borrowed from the public library. Completed on 8/2/24.
