Another short story in my list of books to review. You Can Go Home Again is the second piece I’ve had the pleasure of reading by crafty author Steve King, and I must say, he did not disappoint me. The Shrinking Sea was the first book I read by him, a YA Contemporary read about love, family, and friends, you can find my review for that book here. You Can Go Home Again is a little different from The Shrinking Sea but it’s easy to tell they’re written by the same author.

King has a pattern, he likes to write about as many characters as possible. That’s not a complaint by the way…I love large casts, I love getting to know different characters because it demonstrates a certain amount of talent from the author. King portrayed such a talent in the first piece I read but I got it again in You Can Go Home Again.

This short story is about a normal family named the Gilmores. This family has a father, a mother, a lovely daughter, and a group of pet mice. Like the human family, each mouse has a distinct personality that comes through in the writing. Surprisingly, this story is actually more about the mice than the humans but that’s not a surprise in children’s fiction.

After forgetting to clean the cage for her mice, Tessie—the young daughter of the Gilmore family—faces the consequences of her poor choices. Her father decides to release the pets to the wild as a punishment for Tessie’s irresponsibility. From there the story splits into two narratives, one from the scared mice and the other from the Gilmores. Readers are taken on a wonderful and thrilling journey as the mice find their way back home to Tessie.

It’s a great story that I enjoyed very much, I felt like I’d been taken back to my childhood with the adorable animals and the connection they had to their human friend, Tessie. Of course the lesson of responsibility was a great inclusion in the story. I think all children’s books should have some sort of underlying message, King did a great job at weaving in this particular theme without beating readers over the head. Parents will love reading this story with or without the little ones! I can easily see this becoming a classic tale for all ages.