THE STORY OF HESTER MOUSE WHO BECAME A WRITER

Hester a well-dressed mouse, is handsomely illustrated as an appealing mouse housekeeper. She lived in a cage in a writer's office and had convinced herself that her running on the treadmill activated her writer's typing. An egomanaical owl, who had been dining off Hester's equally well-dressed relatives, kidnapped her, cage and all, and dictated his autobiography to her. Rescued by her writer, Hester pretends to read the owl a flattering account of himself from the writer's typed pages. Gratified, the owl promises to take her nearest and dearest off his diet. Later, for her relatives, Hester reads what her writer really wrote: "This is the story of Hester Mouse, who became a writer and saved most of her sisters and brothers and some of her aunts and uncles and cousins from the owl." Terribly contrived, isn't it? And, since the quoted line appears as the sub-title on the jacket and as the first line of the text, the story is really given away before it ever happens.