Rastamouse and Da Micespace Mystery

By Michael De Souza and Genevieve Webster

Published 12th September 2013, Macmillan, £6.99

My first impressions of Rastamouse and Da Micespace Mystery were that it was bright and colourful and I loved the illustrations.  The little ones certainly found it appealing too, and they enjoyed seeing the familiar characters from the excellent Rastamouse programmes on Cbeebies.

I read the story to all four children together and we all enjoyed it, though I have to admit that my rendering of the Jamaican patois probably left a little bit to be desired.  It’s a funny story though, and cleverly written.  Rastamouse and the Easy Crew receive a call from the President because his bank account has been hacked and the Mouseland millions have been stolen.  Luckily Rastamouse has a plan to track down the geek-a-mouse who’s responsible – the gadget-loving Mister Flash. I liked the reference to “MiTube” as well as “Micespace”, and it made Owl laugh out loud.  In fact, on first reading I think he liked it the most, as he was quickest to understand the story.  With the others, I had a lot of explaining to do, with the help of the glossary and list of abbreviations at the back of the book – I needed it for “Criss” and “G2G”!

After reading the story, the three older children drew pictures inspired by the excellent illustrations, and Monkey made a Rastamouse finger puppet!

It’s a fun book, and even more so when daddy reads it out loud – his patois, though decidedly dodgy, is definitely better than mine!

This book was sent to us for review by Macmillan Children’s Books.