Extreme Babymouse: 02/19/17

Extreme Babymouse by Jennifer L. Holm is the 17th of the Babymouse series. Babymouse and "friends" hit the slopes. That is, if Babymouse can convince her parents.

These books always have the same formula: Babymouse is asked if she's going do to the latest "cool thing" and she's of course clueless. But she instantly wants to do it too, no matter what it is. Then she has lots of obstacles, in the form of her parents and her own unwillingness to work for the goal. And all of this glued together with her lengthy hallucinations.

In most books too, the bully, a mean girl cat, ends up stealing the limelight and Babymouse's so called friends. This time, though, the bully gets a taste of what Babymouse has been put through. A lot of Babymouse's bad luck is self inflicted and that's exactly what happens here.

Each one of these books has a moral, though how well these morals play out varies wildly across books. The message here is twofold: take your time and listen to your inner voice. It's basically the same message as Candace's "Give Up" song from "The Last Train to Bustville" (Phineas & Ferb (2011))

Fortunately and REMARKABLY, Babymouse actually takes these messages to heart. She does take her time and she does hold off from doing the insanely dangerous things the bully tries to goad her into doing. And she does eventually learn how the basics of snowboarding.

Four stars

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