Age 5-9

In the tradition of Beatrix Potter’s The Tailor of Gloucester, of Brambly Hedge and of Mary Norton’s The Borrowers, this is a tale of two mice, Tumtum and Nutmeg, who live in a 36-room grand Hall inside the broom cupboard of a ramshackle cottage. The cottage is occupied by the two motherless Mildew children and their kindly but absent-minded inventor father. Tumtum and Nutmeg help to alleviate the stringencies of the Mildews’s cash-strapped life by, for instance, mending the heater in the attic, darning socks, and doing a bit of dusting. They also correspond with the children without identifying themselves. When sour and bullying Aunt Ivy arrives, who hates mice, Tumtum and Nutmeg instigate a plan to drive her home again. The black-and-white illustrations by Nick Price are decorative and engaging, if not always consistent with the text (Aunt Ivy leaves in her dressing gown in the narrative, for instance, but not in the pictures). Told simply, with charming detail, this old-fashioned and well-published story, the first in a series, will delight children who are of an age to relish secret friends and a cosy world in miniature.

TUMTUM AND NUTMEG by Emily Bearn
(Egmont £5.99)

Times Recommends

• Extract: My Little Armalite
• Madonna: A life in 10 songs
• The Sunday Times 100 best holiday reads