The Amazing Adventures of Freddie Whitemouse

Freddie is a young mouse – but he doesn’t want to be a mouse. So when he meets a sorcerer – a toad – he leaps at the chance to become something else for a week. How will he fare being a tiger? A dog?

The theme of wanting to be something else is a familiar one, often explored in picture books. Here Elizabeth Jane Howard has written a more extended version that would be ideal as that longer bedtime story. It has an old-fashioned air, and there is certainly a message to be learnt. However, Howard does not treat the situation as a comedy; when Freddie becomes a tiger, he is indeed a real tiger. Nor does she see Freddie’s situation as black or white; there are great attractions to being a dog. But all turns out for the best. An enjoyable piece of whimsy from the pen of a master.