Jasper John Dooley: Lost and Found

Caroline Adderson's Jasper John Dooley: Lost and Found is a funny, gentle story for 7 year olds about a boy who falls head over heels for his dad's old toy mouse.

What happens

Every Wednesday Jasper visits his Nan. This week she's found a box in her storage room. Inside are marbles, old cars and a pile of toy soldiers that are, for some reason, pink (Dad painted them with Nan's nail polish when he was little, and Uncle Tom was NOT happy).

Then Nan pulls out Marcel Mouse.

This little orange mouse has huge ears. There was a TV show about him once. Dad loved him so much he hung him round his neck on a string and never took him off, not even in the bath.

So Jasper does the same, on a so so long string. When Dad spots Marcel he leaps off the sofa and sings the theme tune, waving his hands high and low and spinning round the living room. Who knew Dad could dance?

Marcel turns out to be a very tricky mouse. He disappears under a pillow. He gets swung into a classmate's head in the playground. He ends up in the school's Lost and Found box, wrapped in so much string that nobody realises he's a mouse at all.

And then something awful happens in the bathroom (all we'll say is that it involves a flush).

It's written so closely to the way a young child thinks. Jasper stops to explain to the whole class why he's late before he's even sat down. He's sure Marcel doesn't get travel sick. When his heart is broken, he sticks two plasters in an X over it.

The grown-ups are lovely too. Dad tells him about one of Marcel's old TV adventures to cheer him up, and before long the whole family is at the library, tracing ocean currents in an atlas to work out where a plastic mouse might float to next.

If your child has ever lost something they loved, they'll feel every bit of this. But it's never sad for long, and there's a LOT of singing.

What to read next

If they want more of Jasper, try Jasper John Dooley: You're in Trouble. This time a can of fizzy energy drink drops out of the vending machine instead of apple juice, and a few sips leave Jasper with only one speed. Fast!