Books about Mice

This week, I found myself in the strange position of saying, "Well, they sure don't write kid's books about mice the way they used to!"
My book group read a children's book, The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. She also wrote Because of Winn-Dixie, which has been made into a movie that opened this week.
I didn't like The Tale of Despereaux much. The plot seemed contrived and made up on the fly.
On the other hand, here are three kids books about mice that I simply adore:
The Mouse and the Motorcycle, by Beverly Cleary - Our hero, Ralph the mouse, learns to ride a motorcyle and makes friends with boy named Keith.
Stuart Little, by E.B. White - No, NOT the movie! This book is about a young man who looks just like a mouse. He falls in love with a little bird who flies away, so he leaves home to find her. Very charming, but also somewhat bittersweet. E.B. White also wrote Charlotte's Web ("Some pig!"), and a serious book about writing called The Elements of Style (with William Strunk).
And my all-time favorite children's book ... drum roll, please ...
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O'Brien - Mrs. Frisby's son Timothy is sick and can't survive moving day. If the mouse family doesn't move from the field where they live by spring, they will perish when the farmer's plow comes. Mrs. Frisby must ask the mysterious rats to help her save her son.
In my favorite scene, Mrs. Frisby gets advice from a very old owl. He concludes by telling her he understands her dilemma all too well:

"I have lived in this tree, in this same hollow," the owl said, "for more years than anyone can remember. But now, when the wind blows hard in winter and rocks the forest, I sit here in the dark, and from deep down in the bole, down near the roots, I hear a new sound. It is the sound of strands of wood creaking in the cold and snapping one by one. The limbs are falling; the tree is old, and it is dying. Yet I cannot bring myself, after so many years, to leave, to find a new home and move into it, perhaps to fight for it. I, too, have grown old. One of these days, one of these years, the tree will fall, and when it does, if I am still alive, I will fall with it."
With this sad prediction, the owl stepped through his doorway, spread his great wings, and was gone, soaring silently downward into the shadowy woods below.