"The most endearing mice and their adventures with new human neighbours."
April 2026 Book of the Month
This might be the best mouse story since Emily Gravett’s Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears and it represents something of a departure for this award winning author, incorporating mixed media and cut out and fold out elements, all of which add gloriously to the fun.
The titular guests are humans moving into a house inhabited by an extensive mouse family, who are most alarmed by the news. They have heard Uncle Rupert’s scary stories about humans and the way they force mice to run in wheels. But this does not put off our intrepid narrator and some of his friends, who go up above to investigate (full page spreads split horizontally with the brown floorboards showing the action above and below) and they find the ‘most extravagant, curious, and fun human things’ ( and readers will delight in spotting what the mice do with these common household objects).
There is such ‘yummy human food,’ that they go back the next night, only for our narrator to be caught by an equally curious little girl. When the troop attempt a rescue, they all end up trapped, but discover the little girl has created the ultimate mouse ‘paradise’ for them from cardboard boxes and the like. But their fun is brought to an abrupt end with the arrival of a fearsome cat.
This ever so slightly subversive tale is a delight, with the exuberant voice of the narrator and his comic asides a joy to read aloud. Even the most rodent averse cannot help but fall for these little guys.
Shortlisted for Illustrator of the Year - British Book Awards 2025,
| Suitable For: | |
| Other Genres: | |
| Recommendations: |
We've got some great stuff related to this book in our KidsZone.
Head over there and check it out now.
Shortlisted for Illustrator of the Year - British Book Awards 2025, From the internationally best-selling author and illustrator, Mariajo Ilustrajo, comes an interactive page-turner of a picture book. Providing a playful, surprising twist on the classic "unexpected guest" premise, the narrative here is flipped, making humans the unexpected guests in a tale told by mice! The mice living happily under the floorboards of a house find their peace is disturbed by some unexpected guests . . . humans!
The LoveReading4Kids Editorial Team have read and reviewed Unexpected Guests and determined it is suitable for children aged 3-8 years old
Unexpected Guests features in the following genres: Featured Books for 3+ readers, Featured Books for 5+ readers, Featured Books for 7+ readers, Books of the Month, Recommendations, Star Books, Funny, Animal Stories, Picture books: character books, Picture storybooks, Children's and Young Adult Fiction, Children’s, Teenage and Educational, Children’s picture books, Children’s: picture books, activity books, early learning concepts
Paperback, Hardback. £7.19, down from the £7.99 cover price. In Stock.
Unexpected Guests was written by Mariajo Ilustrajo and published by Frances Lincoln Children's Books
Unexpected Guests has 48 pages
£7.19, reduced from £7.99. In Stock.
