A group of barn mice have a brilliant idea: If they can put a bell around the cat’s neck, they’d always know when she was coming and could hide. Through industrious teamwork they find the necessary materials to make a collar with a bell, but how will they ever get it around the cat’s neck? After a couple of well- planned but unsuccessful attempts, the mice serendipitously get help from a little girl, part of a family of “giants” that’s just moved in. McKissack’s modern (and extended) version of a medieval fable is illustrated with detailed paintings that show the humans at the end of the book as African American. (Ages 4–7)