Back Off, Tiny Tim! A Very Baby Mouse Christmas by Jennifer L. Holm

Baby Mouse will do whatever it takes to make sure she gets the present she wants this year--even if she must outsmart Santa himself!

BabyMouse wants a Whiz-Bang, the electronic gizmo du jour, It's a phone; it texts; it's a video game and music player; it does everything her heart desires--except straighten her permanently kinked whiskers. But that's a story for another day.

Right now, BabyMouse has to make sure that Whiz-Bang is in her stocking on Christmas morning, and she plans her campaign as carefully as a military tactician. She drops hints like mad at home; she writes a personal letter to Santa making her case, and just in case the mail goes astray, she disguises herself as a tot in line to see Santa at the Mall. She enters a best-holiday-decorated locker contest at school hoping to win one, with disastrous results to her locker door. She searches all the usual hiding places on closet shelves at home, but only succeeds in inducing avalanches of old boots and mittens. She thinks about nothing but Whiz-Bangs as she goes to Wilson's for Hanukkah, takes in the Nutcracker ballet, featuring the Dance of the Sugar Plum Whiz-Bang, and even has a disturbing dream where she is Scrooge, visited by the three Ghosts of Mean Girls.

"No crumbs for YOU, Bob Crachett. I need to sell my cupcakes so I can buy a Whiz-Bang."

Finally Christmas morning arrives. Under her tree BabyMouse finds--a doll house!

"Does Santa even READ those letters?"

And then--her faith is restored. There is one more small, rectangular package for her, and inside--Oh, Joy!--a Whiz-Bang! There's just one problem.

"Batteries not included."

"Typical" said BabyMouse.

Will BabyMouse find the true meaning of Christmas with her family while her much-wanted Whiz-Bang lies battery-less? You betcha!

In three-time Newbery author Jennifer Holm's A Very BabyMouse Christmas (Random House, 2011) our heroine finds fun and fulfillment with her family, ably abetted by the cartoons of brother Matthew Holm, in book #5 of her best-selling middle grade graphic novels. Baby Mouse gets the spirit of Christmas right at last.

"Sometimes the best presents are the ones you don't expect."