Melanie Mouse's Moving Day by Cyndy Szekeres

Melanie Mouse is so sad. Her family is moving, and that means that she'll have to say goodbye to all of her friends. How can she leave the people she loves? Moving is going to be awful! But once she sees her new house and starts to make new friends, she realizes that it's not going to be so bad after all.

This was a book that I know I read as a child (there's even a home movie of my mom reading it to me), but unlike a lot of other books from my childhood, I haven't read this one in years. When I found it again through Inter-Library Loan, I was surprised at how sad it was. Melanie is inconsolable in the first part of the book, and her friends are all sad, too. They have such big, sad eyes and mournful expressions - it's just so sad! Of course it has a happy ending, and I'm glad for that, but it was overshadowed for me by the sad part. The illustrations are very sweet and the mouse world that Cyndy Szekeres has created (tiny things used for tables, mouse toys, moving your belongings on a leaf) could easily capture a child's imagination. I thought that this book was out of print but I see that there was a 2010 edition published, so a new generation of kids can work through the emotions of a move with Melanie's help.

Find it at IndieBound 

Read it with:
Suppertime for Frieda Fuzzypaws by Cyndy Szekers
Nothing-to-Do Puppy by Cyndy Szekeres
A Kiss Goodbye by Audrey Penn