Need a House? Call Ms. Mouse!

By George Mendoza & Doris Susan Smith. Published by New York Review Books. 

Hardcover, 48 pages, Colour, 2023 (originally published 1981)

Every animal in the forest can have a home they love with the help of Ms. Mouse in this whimsical and educational book about design and architecture.

Henrietta is a world-famous architect, and the only mouse in the world who knows what makes a squirrel or a rabbit, a caterpillar or a frog feel at home. A dreamer, a designer, an artist, and a creator, Henrietta works at her drawing board to imagine the perfect home for each of her friends, be they woodland, water, subterranean or winged creatures.

With clever features, like a trapdoor for Mole or a telescope platform for Owl, and the ideal placement, like high in a pine for Squirrel or inside a pear for Caterpillar, Henrietta Mouse’s houses are both practical and beautiful—in short, ingenious!

George Mendoza’s Need a House? Call Ms. Mouse! is as inspiring today as when it was first published in 1981, and Doris Susan Smith’s illustrations of this hard-working female protagonist and her fantastical designs and architectural marvels will captivate young readers.