THE SLEEPY DORMOUSE

The dormouse is hard to rouse; even when Scraggly Sam the weasel captures him under a flower pot to fatten him with sunflower seeds, he barely stirs to eat them. The harvest mice, trying to help, scurry away when Sam returns; but the dormouse, now alert to the danger, adopts their plan: He plants some sunflower seeds, and the growing plants soon lift the pot enough so that the harvest mice can pull the dormouse free. Though sunflowers shaded by a pot won't really grow so green and bushy, the principle is sound, and its peaceable application to the problem at hand is delightfully imaginative. Rowe's precisely observed, freely painted woodland animals are most endearing. Pair this with Ellen Walsh's saga of another creative escape: Mouse Count (1991).