The Umbrella Mouse by Anna Fargher tells the wonderful story of a mouse who joins the Resistance in France during the Second World War. Pip and her parents live in an umbrella in Mr Smith’s shop in London. When a bomb falls her family are killed and her home destroyed but Pip is determined to reach the Umbrella Museum at Gignese in Italy, where her relatives live. With the help of Dickin, a rescue dog, a Hans, a rat who has escaped from Germany, she manages to cross the Channel with the umbrella, which she refuses to leave behind. But this is 1944 and crossing France is no easy matter for a small mouse carrying a full-sized brolly. Based on real animals and people the story now tells of her adventures with Noah’s Ark, the little-known arm of the Resistance led by a hedgehog.

Boat 13.

Jane

Anna Fargher, The Umbrella Mouse is available in paperback, £6.99. As always please order or buy it from your local bookshop. You’d miss it if it closed.