Given that Margery Sharp is primarily remembered today for her children's books about mice who belong to the Prisoners' Aid Society, it seems surprising that the first one was a complete anomaly when it was released in 1959. At that point, she was known for books for adults, a number of which had been adapted for the big screen by Hollywood studios, especially at the tail end of the forties, 'Cluny Brown' keeping its name but 'The Nutmeg Tree' becoming 'Julia Misbehaves' and 'Britannia Mews' becoming 'The Forbidden Street'.

However anomalous at the time, 'The Rescuers' was so successful on its original release that she wrote eight sequels, starting as soon as 'Miss Bianca' in 1962 and continuing up until 'Bernard into Battle' in 1978. Of course, there were two animated 'Rescuers' movies too, courtesy of Disney, but, while I've likely seen both of them, it would have been so long ago that I can't remember them at all. As I've never read the book either, it made sense to catch up with it now as my children's genre classic for August.

I've heard that Sharp actually intended it for adults, but it doesn't read that way at all, only mild subtext hinting at any sort of adult content and the language much easier than last month's pick, the wonderful 'A Traveller in Time'. For instance, we start out in a "barely civilized" country, which is carefully not named but anyone with an eye for geography will realise is a nation located on the eastern end of the Mediterranean, either eastern Europe or the middle east. An organisation of mice dedicated to aiding prisoners hears about a Norwegian poet, locked up in the Black Castle, a legendary prison, and the story deals with their efforts not only to provide him with aid but to aid him to escape.

He's never named and his crimes, real or imagined, are similarly never brought up. He's merely a MacGuffin. Other humans are mentioned, but remain similarly unnamed. There's "the Boy", who lives in an embassy and keeps a mouse there as a pampered pet. There's "the Head Jailer", who's in charge of the Black Castle and who unknowingly provides a home for the three lead characters for much of a year.  There are occasional guards and a footman and absolutely none of them affect the story in any substantial way. This might unfold in our world, but human beings are periphery.

Those three lead characters, of course, are all mice and they're all named, though not all mice are. For instance, the meeting of the Prisoners' Aid Society that we join at the very beginning is led by "Madam Chairwoman" and "the Secretary". The former raises the Norwegian poet and leads the charge to rescue him, during the meeting, at least. She's not one of the three lead characters, but the first of them is there at the meeting, Bernard by name; a working mouse who lives in a pantry and has won an award, the Tybalt Star for "bravery in the face of cats".

He's a mouse of interest to Madam Chairwoman because that pantry happens to be located in the embassy, downstairs from that pampered pet, Miss Bianca, who's about to fly to Norway secreted inside a diplomatic bag because the Ambassador is being reassigned to Oslo. Bernard is therefore tasked with reaching her and convincing her to visit the local mice when she gets to Norway, find a suitably daring mouse who can speak both Norwegian and English and is also willing to travel back to that "barely civilized" country, so he can mount that rescue mission.

Miss Bianca is the star of the show in the sense that she comes across like a screen idol, someone who lives a glamorous life far beyond the reach of everyone else. Certainly, that's the impression Bernard gets when he arrives upstairs and sees her porcelain pagoda house with a Venetian glass fountain, all surrounded by a golden cage. It's the impression we get too when she talks to him, as if the world is her oyster. What surprises us isn't that she undertakes the mission recommended to her—even if the key detail that convinces her is that the prisoner is a poet like her—it's that she's willing to accompany the Norwegian mouse on the broader mission too. And, if she's in, then how can Bernard, who's clearly smitten with her, not volunteer to join them.

That Norwegian mouse is Nils, a seafaring adventurer and swashbuckler, utterly perfect for such a mission. Miss Bianca refuses to let anything affect her equilibrium so gets by, too, however dark it becomes, and Bernard is just happy to be in her company, but certainly contributes to the mission in his own way. He may be a nervous sort, but he's no coward. And that's pretty much all you need to know because it's all about these three characters. Sure, there's some geography, but the map that Miss Bianca draws for Nils is hilariously bad and only coincidentally accurate; there's a pinch of socio-political background but it's utterly unexplored; and even the mission itself is slapdash, a dab of planning and a massive dollop of fortune.

There are so many ways it seems like Sharp could have improved this. She could have fleshed out a coherent backdrop for this mission. She could have ditched the many plot conveniences that make it a short read, my Berkley Medallian paperback clocking in at under a hundred and fifty pages, a decent amount of those being dedicated to the gorgeous illustrations of Garth Williams, who also illustrated many American children's classic, from the first eight books in the 'Little House' series to 'Charlotte's Web', 'Stuart Little' and 'The Cricket in Times Square'. She could have provided the reasons why the Norwegian poet was imprisoned to begin with and presumably why they held no legal grounding. She chose to do none of those things and simply explore these three characters.

And, on that front, this is a huge success. While we don't necessarily feel for every mouse that's in this book, Madam Chairwoman in particular coming across very much like a general who's willing to risk everyone else but won't step up herself, we do care about these three, as different as they are. Nils ought to be the obvious lead, because he's the action hero, but Miss Bianca effortlessly takes command because she's who she is, without somehow ever coming across as arrogant. Sure, she's pampered, but, once she's committed to an act, she sees it through.

My favourite, though, is Bernard, who grows substantially as a character during this book and, no doubt, in the sequels to follow, given that he's in the title of two of them, even if Miss Bianca gets five and Nils none at all. Maybe he doesn't even reappear. Everything I see about this suggests, in utterly unsurprising fashion, that the book is much better than the movie, but I'll probably check out the latter anyway, if only to see what they do with Bernard, who plays him and how he grows. I don't have any of the sequels, so I won't be following up this review with them, but I'll keep an eye open when I start deep diving into Phoenix thrift stores again soon. ~~ Hal C F Astell