A mice-obsessed tabby cat spends his days imagining every different kind of mouse in this surreally entertaining picture-book from Italy. From eighty-eight mice in checkered jackets singing in the rain, to one hundred and forty-four mice riding a triple-decker bus, from the mouse who lost a tooth to the one who wore a red sack, every murine figure imaginable parades through his mind's eye. Every one, that is, save a most mysterious mouse that hovers just out of reach, somehow there but not there. Will the cat ever meet this mysterious rodent? If he does, what effect will it have on him...?

Originally published in Italy as Il Topo Che Non C'era, this wonderfully appealing picture-book is presented to the American market by the marvelous Enchanted Lion Books, a small Brooklyn-based publisher specializing in translated children's books. I found the narrative quite entertaining, with its introverted feline hero, determined to imagine one million mice by the time he is eighteen years old. The way in which author Giovanna Zoboli ties the kind of mice being imagined to particular moods on the part of the cat, was very well-done, and quite thought-provoking, highlighting for young children reading and/or listening to the story, that what we think about at any given moment may indeed by driven by our emotional state. The artwork by Lisa D'Andrea is simply delighttul, beautifully capturing the many mice imagined by the cat, as well as the cat's own changeable state. Beautiful, droll, a bit surreal - story and artwork work seamlessly together in A Most Mysterious Mouse, making it one of my favorite recent picture-books from abroad. Well done, Zoboli and D'Andrea, and well done to Enchanted Lion Books for having it translated! Recommended to anyone looking for interesting and slightly off-beat children's stories featuring cats, mice, friendship, and/or dreams. ( )