Book Review: Richard Peck's Latest!

What could be more surprising than Victorian mice orchestrating their clueless humans' social affairs during a trans-Atlantic sail? SECRETS AT SEA is Richard Peck’s latest delightful middle-grade novel, with lovely soft-edged illustrations by Kelly Murphy. It's due out this October from Dial.

This is a charming historical novel about mice, and that’s a phrase I’ve never written before. It stars mice siblings, in fact, and the oldest sister Helena, like every good eldest sister, is in charge and naturally, the narrator. Most of the story takes place during a trans-Atlantic crossing aboard a great ocean liner due to reach England in time for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897.  It’s a mice-tale of manners, a swirl of romance and royalty, ball gowns, weddings and many coursed-meals, whether with humans at the Captain’s table or at the mice’s yardstick table on thread spool seats.

The mice siblings live with the wealthy, but comic and all-too-human Cranston family who are headed for London to find suitable matches for their two daughters.  Mrs. Cranston in particular says all the wrong things with, as described by one passenger, “a voice like the cawing of a crow,” displaying “shoulders like sides of beef.” The mice sisters, Helena, Beatrice and Louise, and their pesky brother Lamont, all hate water, but accompany their human family tucked away in their steamer trunks.  They find the ship teeming with a hierarchy of all classes of mice also accompanying their human passengers, and of course, a ship’s cat. Helena and her siblings work feverishly behind the scenes, relying on every rodent social connection they can muster to compensate for the clumsy Cranstons, and match-make for the deserving Cranston girls. They are aided by, among others, Nigel the Mouse Steward, the old Duchess of Cheddar Gorge who has “terrible teeth and breath that would kill flies,” and dashing Lord Peter, Mouse Equerry.

To the reader’s happy satisfaction, mice and humans both find plenty of romance and adventure at sea. Best of all, Peck’s trademark dry humor and sly sense of fun are in full play on every page of SECRETS AT SEA.