The unexpected arrival of someone from Ruby’s past life on the savanna revives memories both warmly nostalgic and deeply traumatic. Ruby was born in an unspecified part of Africa, later ending up on display in the mall, where she met Ivan, Bob, and Julia. Luckily, she can confide in her Uncle Ivan, who is next door in Gorilla World, and Uncle Bob, the dog who lives nearby with human friend Julia. She’s apprehensive about her Tuskday, a rite of passage for young elephants when she’ll give a speech in front of the rest of the herd. In this follow-up to 2020’s The One and Only Bob, Ruby the elephant is still living at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary.

This mouse-sized identity quest sparkles. Details of the mouse world that bustles around and under the human world will enchant lovers of animal fantasy, and clever running jokes provide both humor and continuity (our poor hero is repeatedly asked, “Are you not yet full-grown, or just short?”). Peck binds this unlikely romp together with his characteristically witty and precise prose, flavored by an endearing blend of humility and superiority that only a British foundling mouse can muster. In short order, he goes from this disgrace to refuge in a horse’s manger to a daylong stint as a Yeomouse of the Guard to the private chambers of Queen Victoria, where he blunders into secret upon secret, including, at the end, his identity. On the run from a couple of school bullies, he finds himself exposed, in his school uniform, on the floor of the royal riding school, where he is noticed by a human-most definitely not the done thing. Blameless he may be, but that doesn’t keep him out of scrapes. “Nameless is Blameless” is one of her favorites, used whenever her young charge asks who he is. A foundling, he’s been brought up by his “aunt” Marigold, who is fond of aphorisms. Readers first meet the titular mouse, the book’s narrator, in the Royal Mews. Peck returns to the parallel mouse society he introduced in the effervescent Secrets at Sea (2011) for a rodent’s-eye view of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.

Secrets at Sea by Richard Peck