Russell Hoban is probably best known and loved for his charming series of books about Frances the Badger. However, in 1967 he wrote a novel that many consider to be one of the great works of children's literature of the twentieth century, The Mouse and His Child.

The mouse and his child are wind-up toys forever joined at the hands. But when their mechanism breaks they are discarded, separated from the doll house where they lived and the toy elephant that the child calls "mother" (much to her chagrin). And so begins a suspenseful journey that is heartbreaking, thought-provoking, and ultimately joyful as the mice seek what seems at first to be impossible: independence (self-winding) and the way back home.