This follows the mystery of Burrow Down, a small underground village of woodland creatures such as Eliza Brown the rabbit. Night after night, as they are reading a variety of children’s tales from their favorite books, a mysterious shadow or being steals their books off their shelves or even right out of their hands! Eliza decides to get to the bottom of the mystery, and sets up bait (a stack of books) to catch the thief. With a brave confrontation, Eliza discovers a “Snatchabook”, a tiny creature who has stolen the books. Eliza discovers the creature steals the books since it has no one to read to them. Eliza strikes up a compromise, and convinces the Snatchabook to return each and every book snatched from the Burrow. Once all the books are returned, Snatchabooks are welcome to sit in on the nighttime story readings.
I really enjoyed the quaint illustrations with cute details of lit windows cut into tree trunks, small burrow homes, and the individual stories each family reads. The windy exterior of the burrow homes lends to the realistic and slightly mysterious setting, giving the short story a complete feel. The expressions on the animals’ faces attribute to their dismay and misfortune at being robbed of their prized books. The illustrations of the different stories being told also match to the families telling the stories; a hedgehog group of witches, a badger knight, owl pirates, a rabbit princess and the pea, and a rabbit Red Riding Hood. This was a sweet book, wrapped up nicely with a motto of sharing and befriending those who one might have thought of as an “enemy”.
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