J.J. Mouse accidently finds the diary and sketch-book of his great-uncle, Albert Mouse, which describes his travels around nineteenth-century Victorian Britain
I got this at a library book sale several years ago, for the charming illustrations. At least they were charming when I flipped through the book, but now that I've sat down and properly read it, there's something uncanny about them that sours the charm. I think it's that everything is all the same flatness; the shading and highlighting make the images look like they were pressed into a slab of marshmallow. There's no depth, no sense of where the light is coming from, and it makes the scenes difficult to process, visually. The poems were a bit better, but still had a sort of awkwardness to match the illustrations. I don't often give out two-star ratings, but I just can't bring myself to go higher, even though some of the imagery truly is lovely, like the sequential series on the endpapers and most of the portraits.
Some cute poems with fantastic pictures relating to life in Victorian England. The pictures and poems are all of different animals acting out everyday life including a wedding, a boat race and a debate in parlement.