Yeah yeah, it’s not chapter books. My blog has “mouse” in the name, so this counts.
Kevin Henkes is my favorite kidlit author, bar none. He writes mice characters and doesn’t shy away from subjects.

Premise(s)

Each book deals with a very common subject. Not like mermaids or unicorns or teeth falling out. Really deep subjects. The kind that only a level of disconnecting like mice can accommodate. Not liking your name or walking home an unfamiliar way or being way too worried about everything. Deep, primal kidlit stuff.

This is going to be a little more rapid-fire than the usual Series Spotlights, since we’re not covering one continuous series. I’ll talk more about each book’s premise as we go through the characters.

Characters

Henkes’ series of mice books is eighteen strong. Most feature a different focus character and I’m pretty sure they all live in the same setting. Same town even. You can read them in any order. Characters sometimes cameo from book to book, but you don’t need to know about them to experience the stories. Every book is named after a character, so get ready for a lot of names.

Cool Stuff

Like the Characters section, this is going to be different than normal. Instead of listing a bunch of cool lines from the books, let’s talk about premise and theme.

Premise is the subject of a story, while theme is the meaning behind the story. What the story is about vs what the story is really about. I listed all the premises above in the Character section from each character’s perspective. I think premise is what Henkes is so good at. Putting readers in such relatable, normal, everyday situations that we all hate to be in.

Everyone has that family member like Wendell that we hate being around. Everyone has found something cool and wondered if it might belong to someone. Everyone wants to keep candy for themselves and not share it, even though they know it’s mean.

I don’t even care about theme at this point. Sure, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse and A Weekend With Wendell teach kids to not be inconsiderate. Of course Chester’s Way tells kids to broaden their horizons and try new things. Yeah Owen shows kids how they can move on from the past. These things aren’t what get readers in. Relatability does. Premise does.

(Okay let’s do maybe just a little of the normal Cool Stuff stuff.)

Henkes has said that his characters are so well known he’s heard people in passing call their kids Wemberly for worrying too much. He’s seen people with Lilly and Chrysanthemum tattoos. Parents have named their kids after Owen and Lilly. Must be humbling.

Also, you know, he illustrates all these books too.

Conclusion

The majority of Henkes’ mouse books are collected in Lilly & Friends: A Picture Book Treasury. It’s smaller than the individual picture book entries, but very affordable if you just want the stories.

Penny’s series can be found in four books, no collection. I’m hoping the lack of collection means we’ll get another Penny book soon. The last release was only 2019 (after a six year gap), so it’s possible. I recommend getting the hardback versions of Penny’s books, just to not have the gaudy “I Can Read!” banner at the top. They look much nicer without it.

You might be wondering about those five candy-themed books (Lilly’s Chocolate Heart, Owen’s Marshmallow Chick, Wemberly’s Ice-Cream Star, Julius’s Candy Corn and Sheila Rae’s Peppermint Stick). They were released between 2001 and 2003, then collected as A Box of Treats in 2004. A Box of Treats can be extremely pricey, usually going for upwards of $80+ on the secondhand market. Thankfully, the individual books seem available on Amazon, if you’re interested. The collection doesn’t add anything, besides a cute little box, so take my word for it that it’s cute.

Henkes also writes a lot of other stuff. A lot of other very popular award-winning stuff. These aren’t mouse books though, so maybe I’ll talk about them another time.