The Rescuers
Bianca and Bernard, agents for The Prisoners' Aid Society of Mice, rescue prisoners and outwit villains in this enchanting story, made world-famous by the Walt Disney film.The Prisoners' Aid Society of Mice discusses the proposed rescue of a Norwegian poet from the terrible Black Castle. Miss Bianca, the pet white mouse belonging to the Ambassador's son, is sent to Norway on a mission to recruit the bravest Norwegian mouse she can find. She finds Nils, and brings him back triumphantly. Then she, Nils, and Bernard, a pantry mouse who falls in love with her, set off for the Black Castle. They set up home in a mousehole in the Chief Jailer's room, and narrowly avoid the jaws of Mamelouk the cruel Persian cat. Eventually they trick the cat and the jailer, and get into the prisoner's cell. A dramatic rescue via an underground river, and they are all free – and the Nils and Miss Bianca medal for bravery is struck in the mice's honour!
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First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons and Co Ltd in 1959
This edition published by HarperCollins Childrenâs Books in 2016 HarperCollins Childrenâs Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,
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Text copyright © Margery Sharp 1959
Why Youâll Love This Book copyright © Anne Fine 2010
Cover illustration © Emilia Dziubak 2016
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, 2016
Margery Sharp asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007364091
Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780007390700
Version: 2016-05-20
CONTENTS
Why Youâll Love This Book â by Anne Fine
Chapter Five â Marching Orders
Chapter Six â The Happy Journey
Chapter Seven â The Black Castle
Chapter Nine â Cat and Mouse
Chapter Eleven â The Other Way Out
If thereâs a more enchanting story than The Rescuers, Iâve yet to read it. For fifty years now itâs been delighting children â along with any adult wise enough to snatch the chance to share it.
Yet itâs as fresh today as it has ever been. How could readers fail to warm to a book so full of comedy and heart? We meet three of the most heroic mice in literature: delicate Miss Bianca, who selflessly abandons her pampered life in a porcelain pagoda to journey over rough seas and barren lands to the hideous Black Castle from which no prisoner has ever escaped.
Along with her on this terrifying errand of mercy go two steadfast companions: kind, loyal Bernard from the kitchen pantry (already honoured for Gallantry in the Face of Cats); and Nils, a fearless Norwegian sailor whoâs never happier than when braving storm-tossed waves in his sturdy sea boots.
How these resourceful mice set about their adventure is a wonder. For though Miss Bianca means well, she is unable to confess that Nils has taken her idle doodle of a garden party hat for an accurate map of the waterways they must traverse. (Luckily, Miss Biancaâs refined manners and sprightly grace serve her better in her encounters with the head jailorâs cat, the fierce, yet somewhat dim, Mamelouk.)
This is a book which, once discovered, is read over and over. Each detail enchants and fascinates: the deliciously comfortable walnut-shell chairs in the committee room of the miceâs Prisonersâ Aid Society; the desperate message from the dungeons, cunningly stuck with black treacle to Mameloukâs fur; even the flowery poems that Miss Bianca feels compelled to write at moments of high emotion.
Right from the start, The Rescuers was hailed as a classic. Since then, Margery Sharpâs short masterpiece has enthralled, amused and enriched the reading lives of young people everywhere.
Donât miss it!
Anne Fine
Anne Fine has won a host of literary prizes both here and abroad, and from 2001â3 she was the Childrenâs Laureate.
Visit her website at www.annefine.co.uk
âLADIES AND GENTLEMEN,â cried the Chairwoman Mouse, âwe now come to the most important item on our autumn programme! Pray silence for the secretary!â
It was a full meeting of the Prisonersâ Aid Society. Everyone knows that the mice are the prisonerâs friend â sharing his dry breadcrumbs even when they are not hungry, allowing themselves to be taught all manner of foolish tricks, such as no self-respecting mouse would otherwise contemplate, in order to cheer his lonely hours. What is less well known is how splendidly they are organised. Not a prison in any land but has its own national branch of a wonderful, worldwide system. It is on record that long, long ago a Norman mouse took ship all the way to Turkey, to join a French sailor-boy locked up in Constantinople! The Jean Fromage Medal was struck in his honour.
The secretary rose. The chairwoman sat back in her seat, which was made from beautifully polished walnut shells, and fixed her clever eyes on his greying back. How she would have liked to put the matter to the meeting herself! An enterprise so difficult and dangerous! Dear, faithful old comrade as the secretary was, had he the necessary eloquence? But rules are rules.
