Cheerful – Palmer Brown
Cheerful by Palmer Brown / ISBN 9781590175019 / small 72-page hardback, 4.25 x 6.8 inches, from The New York Review Children’s Collection
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This is the tale of a little church mouse named Cheerful who lives in the city with his parents; his brother, Solemnity; and his sisters, Faith and Hope. Cheerful and his brother and sisters spend their time frolicking in the rainbow shadows cast by the church’s stained-glass windows and dining on the crumbs of wedding cakes. But while Solemnity, Faith, and Hope are happy to live in the bustling city, Cheerful’s favorite spot has always been the greenest patches of light under the windows. His dream is to settle in the country, and one day he bids his family farewell and sets off on an adventure.
Palmer Brown’s intricate filigreed drawings turn this sweet, simple story into an instrument of enchantment as glorious as a rose window and as intimate as the spun-sugar Easter egg that will finally carry Cheerful to his pastoral home.
“Adorable is the word to describe Cheerful by Palmer Brown. A tiny book fitting nicely in small hands, it tells the story of a city mouse raised in a church by sober churchmouse father and a light-footed woodmouse mother. Cheerful—so named because that his mother had urged to be when he was little and his long white whiskers made him look sad—played tag cheerfully with his brothers and sisters among the rainbow shadows cast by the stained glass windows, but he longed for his mother’s beloved woods and fields. How he reached them, in a glorious sugar coated Easter egg, and what happened then, will amuse and charm the youngest, oldest, and everyone in between.” – Chicago Daily Tribune
