Equally (or sequel-ly) brilliant!

Umbrella Mouse to the Rescue - Anna Fargher

Originally due to be published in April I've had an advance copy of this book sitting on my Kindle for many months and it has been burning a hole in my curiosity too! I put off reading it for two reasons. Firstly book one was *so* good I was nervous about the sequel  - could it be as good?

The second reason was more personal, half of the joy from book one was reading it along side my family and the heated texts and messages we shared as we read the book. What with the pandemic we've not been able to really get together much this year and so I wanted the closeness that shared reading brings!

When the copy for Kentishbookboy arrived it just so happened that it was one of the weeks his year group was at school but I'm afraid to say neither his mum nor I could wait any longer and we spent every spare moment over two days reading and messaging.

After the climactic and traumatic ending of the first book we were plunged straight back in to Pip's world and like the first book there were moments of tenderness, fear, and excitement as the adventures across France continued. There were so many historical points covered and coupled with the realistic show of emotions and actions that warfare causes I often forgot that the cast were a mix of animals rather than a group of disparate human resistance fighters!

Being an adult and knowing how the real history of 1944 played out in France meant I was pretty sure how the adventure was going to end but the journey there, through the eyes of a band of animals, was gripping and at times downright scary! And the epilogue was (implausibly) perfect for me - a real pleasure to know that this was a complete story and there wouldn't be dozens of further sequels each becoming more far fetched.

Personally I think that the two Umbrella Mouse books deserve to become as popular as War Horse, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas & Good Night Mr Tom in the way they introduce so many different aspects of war to young readers.

I'm looking forward to hearing what Kentishbookboy and his nan & grandad think when they read the book - hopefully it won't be too long before we can all get together and have a proper book group chat in person.