Young Fredle

Cynthia Voigt tells a story about exploration, changing viewpoints, and what makes a place feel like home. Its narrator is a mouse named Fredle, a thoughtful and anxious young creature who has never lived anywhere but the warm hidden spaces behind the kitchen cupboards. One day he finds himself pushed out into the open world beyond them.

Outside, everything is unfamiliar: bright colors, unusual textures, blades of grass, and a sky that seems to have no end. The new world also holds real hazards, including snakes, rain, lawnmowers, and raccoons. Field mice live there too, but they cannot be fully trusted. Fredle must weigh whether the risks are worth the wonder of what he is discovering.

Fredle's effort to find his way back indoors becomes a dangerous journey full of predators, unexpected friends, vivid sights and sounds, and both new discoveries and longing for the past. Along the way he begins to understand what freedom means.