A Nest for Celeste

Gr 3-5 At Oakley Plantation near New Orleans, temporary home to naturalist John James Audubon and his assistant, Joseph Mason, lives a mouse named Celeste. Industrious and sweet, she forages for food in the dining room and weaves baskets of grass. Unfortunately, she is harassed by resident rats, and, attempting to assuage their hunger, she is trapped by a cat and unable to return to her nook under the floorboards. A chase brings her to Mason's room and there develops a friendship between the homesick apprentice and the little mouse. It unfolds that Audubon is no PETA advocatehe hires hunters to shoot birds so that he can pose them for his drawings. Some of the story is devoted to Celeste's persuading captured birds to pose of their own volition and so save themselves. The theme espoused by the book's subtitle is not well developed, however. Celeste does search for a home, and readers are shown the two naturalists drawing and feeling frustrated when the art does not come easily, but Cole's description of the emotions inherent in the theme does not evoke them in readers. The story's bittersweet conclusion is similarly unsatisfying. What sets the book apart are the charming pencil illustrations that appear throughout, sometimes filling whole pagesa story about making art, full of art."Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick's Catholic School, Charlotte, NC" Copyright 2010 Media Source Inc.