A SEARCH FOR TWO BAD MICE
By
Children who have been to England, are going to England, or delight in Beatrix Potter might sit still for this very tame story of one family's visit. While father is at meetings in London, Barbara, her mother, and six-year-old Sarah cio some predictable sightseeing, and narrator Barbara informs readers of the different words the English have for elevator, dessert, and so on. Then the family drives up through the lake country to see Beatrix Potter's doll house, settling in at a nearby farmhouse where a vacationing British family (with two girls neatly age-matched to theirs) joins them for daily trips to the doll house. The tiny plot centers on Sarah's concern for a cat left behind and her desire to catch sight of mice Hunca Munca and Tom Thumb in the dollhouse. The last visit ends with a cat Sarah is smuggling home tangling in the dollhouse with two real mice the older girls have sneaked in to please her. Nobody stops to wonder why the four adults or even the older girls have nothing better to do with their vacation.