Abel's Island (Newbery Award & Honor Books)
One summer day, newlywed mice Abel and Amanda are out for a  picnic in the woods when they are caught in a sudden storm--a "full-fledged,  screaming hurricane" to be precise. As they take refuge in a cave, a wind scoops  up Amanda's scarf, and Abel foolishly lunges from safety to retrieve it. So begins William Steig's Newbery Honor BookAbel's Island, the  ensuing adventures of this rather foppish mouse as he comes head to head with nature. Amazingly, Abel is swept up in a stream, then a river, then eventually marooned on an island (about 12,000 tails long).  He is sure that his rescue is imminent: "It's certainly gotten around that Abelard Hassam di Chirico Flint, of the Mossville Flints, is missing," the  society mouse speculates. But he is not so lucky. What will this intelligent, imaginative rodent do to get off the island and back to his beloved  Amanda? He busies himself with finding ways to get to shore (including bridges, boats, catapults, stepping stones, and gliders); figuring out what he should eat (everything from mulberries to roasted seeds); and  investigating where he should take shelter (in a rotten log). As the weeks and  months go by, he misses his books, his paintings, his comfortable stuffed  chair, his stylish clothes (now damp, torn, and lumpy), but above all his precious wife Amanda, whom he thinks about constantly. As the mouse  faces his new life Robinson Crusoe-style, Abel discovers what it's like to be  in tune with the natural world as well as his true nature, and  what it's like to return, fortified, to his real home and to the arms  of the one he loves. Along the way, readers can't help but rediscover the  joys of being alive. (Ages 8 and older, but an engaging read-aloud for  younger children, too)--Karin Snelson--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.