Umbrella Mouse to the Rescue: a brilliant, fast-paced adventure!

“Young mouse Pip Hanway is in France as she continues fighting for the French Resistance group Noah’s Ark: a secret gang of animals operating beneath the feet of human soldiers, whose aim is to liberate France and secure the victory of the Allies. Determined to reach her ancestral home of the Umbrella Museum in Italy, Pip hopes she can find long-lost family and a home. But as Pip makes the perilous journey through occupied territory, she soon realizes that danger comes from all sides and that the enemy is all around, and she does everything she can to fight for her friends.”

When I heard there was going to be a sequel to Umbrella Mouse, I was over the moon. The first book was full of adventure and bravery, so I had high hopes for the second one, and man, did it not disappoint!  

These books are gorgeous tales of friendship, fighting for what you believe in, standing up for what’s right and courage which are based on true stories of heroic animals who helped in the fight for WW2. 

These books tell the story of brilliant little mouse, Pip, who is in France fighting for the French resistence. She’s a member of a secret gang of animals who aim to secure a victory for the Allies and help the soldiers along the way. In the first book, you are introduced to a little of her story and you get to know Pip quite well. As Pip goes through the second book, you find out that she’s looking for something dear to her heart and that she will stop at nothing to see if she can get it. As ever, there’s danger in the air and she comes face to face with many different dangers and learns quickly who she can, and can’t, rely on!

I love that these stories are based on the stories of heroic animals in WW2. If you know anything about me, you know I love a wartime book – I think there’s just something so brilliant about them, they all deliver a powerful message of standing up for what’s right and fighting the good fight (if such a thing even exists!) You don’t see a lot of fiction stories from their perspective and I think these stories are a great addition to any class/personal library for wartime books! 

The characters in this book are just wonderful. It’s hard not to fall for a bunch of war-fighting, noble-acting animals to be honest! I read this and was like “YES. I want to help these animals and be their friends! I want to help them in their fight”. I think Pip is a brilliant main character because she’s a little naive, but she learns the true nature of the world as you go through the stories! She’s determined and full of grit, and you can’t fault that in your protagonists (even when they are mice!)

The plot of the story itself is just great: it twists and turns, it’s really brilliantly paced and you never QUITE know what’s coming next, but in that really brilliant way that great story telling is done! You really get immersed into the time and the setting and there’s definitely part of you that will love the characters and empathise with them throughout. There’s definitely scenes in this that I’d love to read with children and use as talking points too – we spend a lot of time talking about human history of WW2, but animals played their part so this could be a brilliant stepping stone to talking about this with children. 

A massive thank you to the publishers for inviting me to be part of this blog tour, and for sending me a review copy of the book. I know it will sit proudly among my other WW2 books! You should definitely go and buy this book, and Umbrella Mouse, if you can! They are brilliant stories! 

Check out the rest of the blog tour and tell me in the comments what YOUR favourite wartime story is! 

Speak to you all soon,

S x