A Nest for Celeste: A Story About Art, Inspiration, and the Meaning of Home

Published in 2010, Henry Cole’s A Nest for Celeste: A Story About Art, Inspiration, and the Meaning of Home is an illustrated children’s historical fiction novel. The story centers around Celeste, a gentle and resourceful mouse living in a 19th-century Louisiana plantation house where the famous naturalist John James Audubon comes to stay. As Audubon embarks on his quest to paint the birds of America, Celeste finds herself on her own journey, seeking a new home and friends. The novel won the Florida Book Award, was nominated for the Charlie May Simon Children’s Book Award, and explores themes of home, art, and friendship.

Citations in this study guide refer to the e-book edition released by HarperCollins in 2010.

Content Warning: The source material contains depictions of gun violence and the deaths of animals. In addition, the novel is set on a Louisiana plantation in the 1820s although the author does not mention slavery.

Plot Summary

Celeste the mouse lives under the floorboards of Oakley Plantation in Louisiana. She spends her time weaving beautiful baskets in a dim and musty nook. Two gray rats named Illianna and Trixie also live under the house. The rats bully Celeste and demand that she gather food for them. While hiding in the plantation’s dining room, Celeste hears Mr. and Mrs. Pirrie welcome Mr. Audubon and his young assistant, Joseph, to their home. Mr. Audubon aspires to paint every North American bird species in its natural habitat. After the humans leave the dining room, Illianna and Trixie grow impatient with Celeste and search for crumbs themselves. Suddenly, a house cat springs from its hiding place and kills Illianna. The cat learns the location of Celeste’s mousehole on the evening of Illianna’s death, and the predator cuts off her escape when she searches for food a few nights later. Celeste takes refuge in Joseph’s guest room and builds a new nest for herself in an old boot. The next night, the cat chases her again while she’s gathering crumbs in the dining room. Audubon’s dog, Dash, frightens the cat away, and Celeste makes a safe return to her new home in the boot.

The next morning, Joseph discovers Celeste in his boot and throws her nest away. The lonely boy is happy to have found the mouse, and he tells her about his homesickness and his concern that his artistic skills do not measure up to Audubon’s standards. Over the next several days, Celeste grows accustomed to listening to Joseph and watching him draw, but her peaceful new routine is broken when she peeks out of the boy’s pocket during dinner. Mr. Pirrie tries to swat her with a ladle, and she’s nearly eaten by the cat before Joseph rescues her. One day, Joseph takes Celeste outside while he works on his sketches. They marvel at an enormous flock of pigeons and are horrified when a group of hunters kills thousands of the birds. A few days later, Audubon has some ducks shot so that he can sketch them. During this expedition, a hunter accidentally grazes Joseph’s head with a bullet, and Celeste worries that she will never find a safe place to call home.

After seeing Audubon pin a dead ivory-billed woodpecker to a board, Joseph questions the painter’s method of killing birds so that he can pose their bodies for his portraits. Audubon angrily replies that this is the best way to preserve the birds’ beauty and sends his assistant from his room. One day, a pair of brothers give Joseph a wood thrush, and he puts the bird in a cage in his room. Celeste befriends the thrush, whose name is Cornelius. Cornelius helps her remember that her family was killed by a farmworker harvesting hay, that a kindly groundhog brought her to his home under the plantation house, and that she never saw the groundhog again after some gunshots were fired outside the house.

Celeste goes outside by herself to gather dogwood berries for Cornelius. A fierce storm arrives and carries the mouse away from the plantation house. Battered and weary, she sleeps the entire next day. A kindly osprey named Lafayette checks on the bedraggled mouse, and she asks him to meet her at sunup the next day so he can carry her home. Celeste weaves grass blades and horsehair into a basket big enough to hold her. The next morning, Lafayette enthusiastically praises the basket as a work of art and uses it to carry the mouse back to Oakley Plantation. The flight exhilarates Celeste and allows her to see the world from a new perspective. Celeste thanks Lafayette and joyfully reunites with Cornelius and Joseph. With her prompting, the thrush sings for the boy. The young artist is filled with inspiration and paints a beautiful picture of the bird. After Joseph leaves the room, Celeste frees Cornelius from his cage. The thrush thanks the mouse and joins a flock migrating south for the winter. Celeste is saddened by this unexpected parting.

Lafayette is shot down by the plantation’s owner soon after the osprey carries Celeste home. Audubon struggles to create a lively portrait of the bound bird until Celeste coaches her friend into a bold and majestic pose. Audubon falls asleep after he finishes the painting, and Celeste frees her friend.

While Joseph is away on a trip to New Orleans, Celeste explores the house’s attic. She discovers a beautifully furnished dollhouse, which she decides will be her home. She spends several days tidying up the dollhouse. Although she is content, she misses her friends. One morning, Trixie moves into Celeste’s dollhouse while the mouse is out gathering food. The rat proceeds to bully the mouse like she used to when they lived under the floorboards. Trixie demands that Lafayette take her for a ride in the gondola. Her impatient tugging breaks the gondola, and she falls into the river, never to be seen again.

A few days later, Joseph returns from his trip. The friends’ joyful reunion is cut short when Celeste goes to the attic and the cat blocks her exit. From her perch in the attic, Celeste sees Joseph reluctantly leave Oakley Plantation with Mr. Audubon, and she realizes that they will never return. Her loneliness eases when a wren named Violet, who is a friend of Cornelius, comes to spend the winter with her. Celeste tells Violet how she found the dollhouse and about the wonderful friendships she made along the way.