A CASE FOR BUFFY

A very personal case for the detectives of the sweet little police station in the forest.

Detective Buffy (a young mouse) and Detective Gordon (an old toad) handle nice, small cases like lost scarves and naughty, littering children in their forest district. When two students from the local kindergarten, a baby toad and a baby mouse, come to train as “small police,” they mention their mothers so often that Buffy becomes sad. She doesn’t remember hers. Detective Gordon encourages her to write poetry to remember, and her verse leads to memories of her past. The four head out to Cave Island to discover what happened to Buffy’s newly remembered mother and siblings. The island is across a mountain and, of course, a bit of water—and there is a fox there to deal with…will he eat the police? Nilsson’s fourth case for kind, wise (and tired) Detective Gordon and his cake-loving mouse protégée is no less charming than its predecessors. Marshall’s deft, homey translation and Spee’s colorful, plentiful illustrations of anthropomorphic animals give the book the feel of a classic you just hadn’t discovered until now. A good choice for family reading time or newly minted readers of chapters.

A gentle, mothercentric mystery that couldn’t be less threatening and a fine addition to the series.