A gentle fantasy about a family of Borrower-like mice. Pochocki structures her story with an unusual device: a sentient but immobile chestnut makes its way to the attic, where different members of the mouse family creatively use it as a toy, a footstool, an objet d'art, and the Christ Child in their Christmas pageant; in the end, it becomes a somewhat withered heirloom. Meanwhile, the mouse children have adventures: one survives an exciting raid on the kitchen, another a mysterious bubble-blowing ailment stemming from surreptitious consumption of aromatic soap, while the eldest gets a modicum of independence by setting up her own studio in an abandoned aquarium. Some of the details are imprecisely imagined: the mice have no trouble getting in and out of the aquarium; one has a ""lovely complexion""; and, except for a few mouse-like habits, these creatures have a surprisingly human-like society that even includes a librarians' convention for Papa. A small, well-designed format; many humorous, precisely detailed drawings; and a smooth, pleasantly whimsical narrative style--all in an appealing story for reading alone or sharing aloud.