I Am the Mountain Mouse

July 15, 2016
In four short stories, headstrong Mountain Mouse cavalierly dares to tread where wiser mice fear to go.Mountain Mouse loves to climb, and in "The Food Story," he claims a cheese wedge because he's "bigger" and "can climb higher" than the other mice. Ignoring his cautious friends' warnings, Mountain Mouse scales a camel's hump, thinking it's a mountain. Barely surviving the camel, Mountain Mouse resurfaces in "The Pool Story." Assuming a dish on the floor is a swimming pool, Mountain Mouse climbs a chair and blindly cannonballs into the cat's water dish. In "The Bed Story," unflappable Mountain Mouse climbs a tall tree searching for a bed and encounters a mother eagle defending her hatching egg. Finally, in the "The Coconut Story," a reformed Mountain Mouse takes his pals to the beach and remains safely with them on shore when they spy a shark. Presented in comic-style frames with text bubbles, hilarious pencil-and-gouache illustrations provide a mouse's-eye view of Mountain Mouse's extravagant, arrogant behavior. In contrast to his smaller, brown and gray pals with their solemn faces and frantic gestures, Mountain Mouse's stout frame, white fur, and dramatic expressions stand out, especially in the final scenes when he's sporting giant shades and flamingo-print swim trunks. A rib-tickling addition to the mouse-adventure genre. (Picture book. 3-5)

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October 1, 2016

PreS-Gr 2-Everybody knows somebody like the Mountain Mouse. Ambitious, self-centered, and oblivious, he wreaks havoc on the lives of his mouse friends in the name of adventure. Arranged in comic book-style vignettes called "stories," with dialogue set into speech bubbles, the narrative begins with a contested piece of cheese that the Mountain Mouse claims because he is bigger and can climb higher than the others. It continues as he clambers up the leg and onto the hump of a camel, asking the large creature, "What are YOU doing on MY mountain?" In each of the little chapters, the four mice friends find themselves in a pickle because of the actions of the Mountain Mouse. Sleep in a raptor's nest right when the egg hatches? No problem! Dive into the cat's water dish as soon as the cat arrives? Why not? Telling drawings of the Mountain Mouse sleeping on, landing on, and otherwise abusing the other mice will have readers wondering why the rodents remain friends. Marino does a nice job of illustrating the group's antics and expressions in gouache and pencil on paper. There is no resolution to the ongoing drama, but children will enjoy predicting what that narcissistic mouse will be doing next. VERDICT A wonderful storytime read. Pair it with Laura Numeroff's If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.-Lisa Lehmuller, Paul Cuffee Maritime Charter School, Providence

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