In A Dark, Dark House: Mouse, Look Out! by Judy Waite

The gate no one opened was rusted and old.

When the wind blew, it sometimes creaked and sighed.

And tucked amongst the cracks of the ivy-covered wall, a little mouse was peeping.

An abandoned English cottage, its twin chimneys overgrown with vines and its unpainted boards gray with time, beckons to a tiny, long-tailed mouse, who, ignorant of the tattered DANGER! KEEP OUT! sign, squeezes through a gnawed-out opening in the sturdy paneled door. Inside, autumn leaves have drifted over the dusty floors, and abandoned relics of former lives lie about--a straw garden hat, its tulle ribbon and flower still a soft but persistent pink, a broken china vase with delicate blue flowers, a curled and creased leather shoe with a hole in the toe, just right for a mouse to hide inside.

Mouse, look out!
There's a cat about!

But the mouse's long, curving tail gives him away, and his presence in the seemingly abandoned cottage is noted, as an almost hidden black cat follows the little mouse as he makes his way through the lower floor and struggles up the stairs to a bedroom above. Amid a jumble of cast-offs--clothing, a teddy bear, bedding--the mouse finds what he is apparently seeking, a tiny hole in the mattress where a little mouse can tuck in warmly for a long winter sleep.

But Mouse, look out!
There's a cat about!

Slinking behind him as he searches for a safe haven is the patient but determined cat, a black shadow which moves silently behind the mouse. As the mouse settles down, the cat begins her final stalk.

But wait! The preying cat is also being followed--by a large dog with a presumably very big bark.

Cat! Look out!
There's a dog about!

And as the back endpapers reveal, the stalker becomes the chased, as a long view from the cottage shows the cat fleeing through the autumn trees, the dog in hot pursuit.

Judy Waite's Mouse, Look Out! combines her stately language and measured rising tension with Norma Burgin's exquisite illustrations, at once both cozy and suspenseful. The mouse frisks about, taking in the empty kitchen and sniffing its left-behind implements. As the mouse reacts to his reflection in a still shiny copper teakettle, we see the cat watching for her moment, hidden except for her face, waiting carefully for the moment we fear is to come, as the two, unbeknownst to each other, make their way through the abandoned rooms.

Listening children will love spotting the cat as it peers out from hiding on every page and will soon be joining in on the repeated refrain "Mouse, look out! There's a cat about!" and will joy as the hunter-and-hunted tables are turned in the surprise ending. Published almost a decade ago in Britain, this book has been reissued in America just in time for our autumnal scary season. For the younger set, though, this tale of a deserted cottage, a venturesome mouse, and a foiled black cat is sure to delight at any time of year.