Of Mice Like Men

I have heard it said that no one wants to read books about talking animals, but even the most hardened anti-anthropomorphist would be hard pressed to not be charmed by Redwall's inhabitants. Matthias is the unlikely hero of "Redwall", a bumbling young mouse who discovers that he is intimately linked with the legendary founder of Redwall Abbey.

The tale centers around Matthias, but other characters are simultaneously shadowed in ensuing chapters as they are in the other books of Redwall. Each species has a specific place in Jacques' world. Hares are military personnel with seemingly bottomless stomachs. Otters are burly sailors, wonderful friends but dangerous enemies. Sparrows are primitive and warlike. Badgers are wise and serene except when they are possessed by the Bloodwrath, when they become vicious killing machines. Moles are simple folk who live underground. Shrews are quarrelsome boatmen allied with Redwall. Rats are pirates. Snakes are just plain evil. Squirrels, mice, hedgehogs and voles make up most of the population of Redwall Abbey, and villains include foxes, ferrets, stoats, weasels and lizards.

Each book includes one or more of each of the following: a romance, a complicated puzzle, the death of one or more major characters, the discovery of goodness in an animal assumed bad (rat, ferret, etc.), poetry, gory battle scenes and mouthwatering descriptions of feasts. Common themes run through each book, and the fewer, weaker animals always prevail over the stronger ones which outnumber them. The lines between good and evil are blurred as abbey-dwellers find friends in unexpected places. Despite the commonalities, each book in this series, starting with Redwall, is delightful in its own right and is only enhanced by the reading of other books in the series. Each book runs several hundred pages and includes many British colloquialisms that may be unknown to some children, but the page-turning adventure makes it well worth the effort.