"The Mousehole Cat" was the winner of the British Book Award for the Illustrated Children's Book of the Year and the British Design Production Award (Children's Books). It was also shortlisted for the Smarties Prize, the Kate Greenaway Medal and the Children's Book Award.
From Publishers Weekly
PW praised equally the "exemplary prose" and the "glowing paintings" in this "captivating" story about a wise old cat and her "pet," a fisherman. Ages 5-8.
From School Library Journal
In lilting and alliterative language, Barber tells the story of Mowzer the cat who saves a Cornish fishing village from starvation at Christmas. The Great Storm-Cat rages outside the snug little harbor and no boats can leave, so Mowzer agrees to accompany her own pet, the human fisherman old Tom, on a fishing venture "for he was only a man. . . and men were like mice in the paws of the Great Storm-Cat." The story is cleverly told from the cat's point of view, with the oceanic Storm-Cat personified both in the text and in the blue-green swirls of Bayley's luminous paintings, which capture nuance, detail, motion, and emotion with energy and rhythm. Narrow bars decorated with sea motifs neatly frame the text in this elegant offering.
