Hermelin: The Detective Mouse

Product Information

I wouldn't necessarily use this book as a read aloud, because I think the illustrations and structure of the writing is fun for students to examine closely on their own. I would include this book in my classroom library for students to read in their free time and would recommend it to students who are not yet able to read text with complex vocabulary and dense writing. I might use this book in a "theme" study and ask students to identify the message of the book and relate it to a real life circumstance. This book is also a wonderful demonstration of different ways complex picture books can be written and why attention to detail is beneficial when piecing together the mystery and understanding the story. This book also has potential to discuss foreshadowing events and making inferences. It’s a terrible thing for Hermelin to be so cruelly misjudged, especially when the mouse’s single aim is to help the hapless people of Offley Street. The dictionary definition of ‘mouse’ shows that Hermelin is a ‘pest’. What other creatures are thought of as pests?

Use relative clauses beginning with who, which, where, when, whose, that or an omitted relative pronoun SR: 712626], Hardcover, [EAN: 9780385754330], Knopf Books for Young Readers, Knopf Books for Young Readers, Book, [PU: Knopf Books for Young Readers], 2014-08-05, Knopf Books for Young R… More... Stepping Stones are our short term literacy plans for teachers which introduce our text-based mastery approach to writing.

Why not also check these out?

Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2020-01-24 09:05:48 Boxid IA1765421 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier Each plan comprises 15 sessions to teach a small number of key writing skills from the national curriculum. Throughout the unit of work, pupils are given the opportunity to repeatedly practise these skills through meaningful short pieces of writing linked to the text. This builds towards a final extended writing task in which pupils can apply the skills with confidence and independence. Hermelin, who is a compassionate mouse, feels sorry for all these people who have lost something that is dear to them. They need help and he decides that he is the perfect person for the job. At the end of the story, Hermelin and Emily work together to solve crimes. Can you think of ways that animals help humans to achieve different tasks? Hermelin is a natural-born detective. So when he discovers the street’s notice board plastered with despairing announcements of lost this or possibly stolen that, he’s on the case. The mouse easily locates Mrs. Mattison’s handbag behind some lettuce in her fridge. He finds Bobo the teddy bear, too, dropped from an attic window into Capt. Potts’ cooling lemon-meringue pie. As he solves each mystery, he leaves an explanatory note signed “Hermelin.” But who is Hermelin? The baffled villagers lure the mysterious hero with a thank-you party at Bosher’s sausage shop. When the little mouse shows up for his big moment, however, the terrified party-givers scream “MOUSE!” How could such a benevolent mouse-detective be perceived as a disease-spreading pest? Hermelin spirals into a full-blown identity crisis, brilliantly captured in nightmarish, comic-book–style panels. All ends well when a girl named Emily sees Hermelin for who he really is. Comical visual details abound, and each stamp-sized window of the Offley Street townhomes is a story in miniature, evoking all the wonder and delight of an advent calendar.

Hermelin is a type of cheese from the Czech Republic. Can you find out more about this country and write a report about it? Hermelin begins by looking for Mrs. Mattison’s lost handbag. Being a mouse who is very observant and who remembers what he sees, he soon finds the handbag in her fridge behind the lettuce. He then finds Dr. Parker’s glasses. Hermelin saw Dr. Parker wearing those same glasses just that morning and at the time she was reading a book, Medical Monthly. It turns out that the glasses are inside the book. Some people think that mice are ‘pests’. Can you create a new story about a pest that becomes a hero?

Hermelin is a rodent that lives on Osprey street and spends all his time observing his neighbors so that when things go missing he is able to solve the case. But there is one resident that may be observing Hermelin! What will he do when he's found out? One morning Hermelin walks past the Offley Street notice board and he sees that is covered with notices. Seven of the eight notices were written by people who have lost something. Imogen Splotts has lost her tedd bear, Captain Potts has lost his cat, and Emily, who lives in Hermelin’s house at No.33, has lost her notebook. Other residents have lost a bag, reading glasses, a goldfish, and a diamond bracelet.