Picturemacs

A counting book depicting the growth in a village and surrounding countryside during twelve months.

Mr. Bear spends the night searching for enough peace and quiet to go to sleep.

The church cat and the church mice use brains instead of brawn to rout a scurvy gang of rats who have taken over the church and turfed the mice and the cat out. They use a number of hare brained schemes to get their home back and rid it of the nasty rats. Very clever story and very funny. The author of this series also illustrated his books and both the text and the illustrations are very amusing.

Arthur, the church mouse, and Sampson, the church cat, live a fairly idyllic life in the church but Arthur is lonely so he hatches a scheme to get other mice to join him in his nice comfy home where for the price of a few jobs the parson will feed them all cheese. Soon Arthur has a nice little community of mice neighbours and he's not lonely any more. Unfortunately there's a regrettable incident and the parishioners insist that the mice leave the church immediately. But just when all is lost Sampson and the mice thwart a robbery at the church and they are allowed to stay. Graham Oakley starts his beloved series with this very funny story about Arthur and Sampson and their life at the church. The pictures are just as funny as the words and the story wouldn't have half the charm without Graham Oakley's also excellent illustrations. A gem.

Samson the church cat and all the church mice devise a campaign to rid the vicarage of the substitute vicar.