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After living in Australia for 60 years, Helen Cartwright has moved back to the English village of her childhood. She is alone: her husband and son died years earlier. At this point, she is waiting to die. Helen keeps to herself, with simple routines every day and week. But one night she finds a mouse, and she can’t help but take him in and care for him. She tells herself it’ll be just long enough until she can find him a good spot in an animal shelter.
The mouse, whom she calls Sipsworth, leads her to break her routine. She has to find food for him. And a proper accommodation. And make sure he’s healthy and won’t be lonely. As one day passes, and then another, and another, Helen finds she has a new friend in this small mouse. And he leads her to meet other people as well.
This short, sweet book is just charming. It’s another story about someone whose life has grown small and insular (I’ve read several lately, like The Love of My Afterlife and The Bookish Life of Nina Hill) who is led into opening up, finding friends and reasons to really live. And the instigator for this change is a humble mouse.
Pick up Sipsworth when you have a little time and could use a gentle pick-me-up.
Rated: Mild. Profanity includes one or two uses of mild language, about 10 instances of the name of Deity in vain, and about a dozen uses of several words considered profanity in Britain but not in the US.
