David Petersen (2) (1977–)

Summary: Mice are small, and although they are safe in their cities and settlements, the lands between are wide and perilous with predators. Luckily, a mouse's courage, steadfastness, and sense of duty is not proportional to their size, and the Mouse Guard stand ready to protect travelers, defend the borders, safeguard the paths, and the defend the interests of mice.

In Winter 1152, the Guard is still recovering from the events of the fall. Supplies of food and medicine are low, and the show more weather has turned bitter. The heroes of the last book, along with a Guardmouse named Sadie, and a greyfur named Celanawe who claims to be the Black Axe of legend - set out on a vital mission to gather medicine and summon the leaders of the towns to a diplomatic meeting. But things go badly wrong, with hungry predators and a dangerous detour through the abandoned tunnels of some of the Guard's greatest enemies.

Review: Well, consider me thoroughly charmed. (Charmed enough even to forget how fast and loose Petersen played with the biology. Seriously, every time the characters were all "Well, it's getting dark, we'd better make camp" I'd cringe a little. Mice are nocturnal!) These books are (unsurprisingly) very cute, but they've also got a dark streak to them. Nothing that would make them inappropriate for YA audiences (although I think the somewhat formal, archaic language would make them inaccessible to younger kids), but sufficiently darker than a lot of the more juvenile animal stories I've come across. They've got very real danger, they've got excitement and action and honor and loyalty and sense of duty and all of that good stuff.

I had a much easier time telling the characters apart - and thus thought the characterizations were better - in this volume. I particularly thought Celanawe's story was very affecting, and had some interesting (if not amazingly novel) things to say about what it means to be a hero. I also thought the second volume had some excellently creepy scenes and panels. Apart from a lot of the mice looking pretty similar, the artwork is absolutely beautiful, detailed and evocative of the wider world of the mice and their culture and civilization. 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: It's got a kind of medieval, Robin Hood-esque feel to it, but honestly, I think even people who aren't fans of that sort of thing will be charmed by this series. show less

Jasper the bunny wants to give his wife Lilly something special for Valentine's Day, but he isn't sure what it should be. Traversing the valley, he visits the other animals, getting ideas - and in the case of Teagan the fox, getting into some hot water! - but nothing seems quite right. It is only at the end of his trip that he realizes his trek through the snow has inadvertently created a lovely gift: a massive heart shape that can be seen from his home on the hill...

Having greatly enjoyed show more David Peterson's Mouse Guard comics, I was curious to see what the author/illustrator would do with Snow Valentine, which was his debut picture-book. Overall, I found it a sweet little Valentine's Day confection, one which paired a heartwarming tale with cute illustrations. As a fox lover, I was amused by the little episode with Teagan - so frequently, in these anthropomorphic tales, predator and prey are friends, but not here! Recommended to anyone looking for engaging picture-books for Valentine's Day. show less

The saga of the Guardmice continues in this second installment of David Petersen's anthropomorphic murine fantasy - like the first, Mouse Guard: Fall 1152, it is composed of six chapters that were originally separate comic book issues, as well as some additional material - as Saxon, Kenzie, Lieam, Sadie, and Celanawe (revealed to be the legendary Black Axe in the previous book) struggle to make their way back to Lockhaven, the Guard Mouse stronghold. Dispatched by Mouse Guard Matriarch, show more Gwendolyn, on a mission to the outlying southern mice settlements, to gather much-needed supplies (depleted by their Fall 1152 conflict with the mouse traitor, Midnight) and to invite their leaders to a territory-wide conference at Lockhaven, the companions become separated on their homeward journey, and must proceed on their divergent paths. Saxon, Kenzie and Sadie, having fallen into the abandoned underground weasel tunnels of Darkheather, must confront the hostile bat residents, and search for a way out, while Celanawe and Lieam push on through a terrible ice-storm, and battle an injured owl, intent on vengeance. Meanwhile, all is not well back at Lockhaven...

I enjoyed my first foray into the Mouse Territories, but Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 has greatly increased my appreciation for this tiny world. It's a cross between Redwall and The Lord of the Rings, with something all its own, as well. Peterson gives his characters a little more depth here, I think - or is it just that I already known them, going into this one? - and his world-building continues apace. I liked that the developing romances between Kenzie and Sadie, and Saxon and Gwendolyn are mentioned mostly in passing - they're there, but they're not the focus - and am eager to know how Lieam's new identity, as the new Black Axe following the death of Celanawe, will develop. I finished the first volumes with a desire to read more, but no strong feeling about owning these books - now I want copies of my own. I also want more, right now! Unfortunately, it looks like the next installment of the saga will be a long while in the coming. Oh well, I guess I can enjoy Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard - a Mouse Guard anthology, with many different artists' take on Peterson's world - in the meantime... show less

Summary: In 1115, Celanawe was an ordinary mouse of the Guard when a distant relative arrived at his solitary outpost. She told a tale of a mythical weapon, the Black Axe, and of Farrer, the blacksmith who forged it, and his descendants... of which Celanawe was the last. Together, they set out on a quest to recover the axe from where it was lost on an unknown land across an uncharted sea. They find a ship to carry them, but the way is long and perilous for such small creatures, and even once show more they reach their destination, they find the axe in the hands of a fearsome predator, the Ferret King.

Review: I already knew that I found the world of David Petersen's Mouse Guard charming, and very easy to fall into. That's equally the case in this installment, and a huge part of what makes it so is Petersen's worldbuilding, and his art (which, in a graphic novel, are inextricably linked.) The medieval setting of the mice's world feels at once very familiar and very original. Many of the visual elements are familiar - the look of illuminated manuscripts, of the weapons and the buildings and the tapestries and carvings - both from our own history as well as from previous medieval fantasies that have drawn upon them. (Ildur, the hall of the ferret king, in particular is extraordinarily reminiscent of Edoras.) But at the same time, everything is scaled down to mouse size, and Petersen does a good job of imagining how these mice would live in a world where almost everything is larger than they are, and most things see them as food. His drawings of the mice out away from their cities, interacting with other creatures, are just as detailed and evocative as his depictions of the more civilized aspects of their world.

I also quite enjoyed the story in this volume. Celanawe was one of my favorite parts of the first two volumes, so I was certainly interested in his backstory, and Petersen did not disappoint. While there's certainly danger and adventure, there's a quiet seriousness to these books as well, a realization that life does not come easy to these mice, and that hard choices sometimes must be made, that makes them something more than a cute animal story, which I appreciated. 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: The Black Axe contains a framing prologue and epilogue set in 1153, after the events of Fall 1152 and Winter 1152, but the bulk of the story would stand well enough on its own. These books have such a good blend of charm and gravitas that I think they'd be appealing to readers of any age who like medieval fantasy or animal stories, or both. show less