Wishyouwas: The tiny guardian of lost letters

Alexandra Page's Wishyouwas: The tiny guardian of lost letters is a cosy Christmas adventure for 8 year olds about a lonely girl and the tiny creature she catches taking letters.

What happens

It's December 1952 and London has vanished under a thick smog. Ten-year-old Penny Black is staying with her gruff Uncle Frank at his post office. Her mum flies airmail planes, and she's stuck in France because she can't fly back through the smog.

Penny sits on the window sill at night writing letters to her mum that she has nowhere to send. That's how she sees what she thinks is a rat drop in through the letterbox.

It isn't a rat. It's Wishyouwas, fluffy and springy with huge moon eyes, and he's got his tail caught in a trap. Penny bandages it with a stamp. He talks in the most charming muddle ("I is a Sorter. Second Class") and calls her Dear Penny.

Sorters look after lost post that can't be delivered. And Wishyouwas takes Penny to see where they go, down a chute inside a postbox and into forgotten tunnels under the city.

What a world it is! The Sorters live in old letterboxes on stilts, guarded by twins with badges saying HANDLEWITHCARE and FRAGILE. There's a tiny class learning to read handwriting. Everything down there is made from things people threw away.

Up above there's a rat catcher with a greyhound called Ripper and a very long, sharp fingernail. He gives Penny one day to catch her "rat" alive before he sets his worst traps. He's genuinely creepy.

It's worth knowing there's a little blood early on when Wishyouwas's tail is caught (nothing gory). Penny's dad died in the war and Wishyouwas's pa was poisoned, both mentioned in passing as things that happened long before. Real rats chase them in the tunnels too, which is quite scary.

Penny is lovely company. She's brave, she's worried sick about her mum, and there are hints that Uncle Frank isn't quite as stern as he looks.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, try The Christmas Pig. Jack's much-loved toy pig is lost on Christmas Eve, so he shrinks down and sets off into the Land of the Lost, where lost things go, to bring him home.