Mouseling's Words

October 2, 2017
Aesop’s “The Lion and the Mouse” gets an affectionate word lover’s makeover. The young mouse who narrates lives with his family among scraps of words taken from a restaurant’s specials menu. Eventually, Mouseling’s siblings leave home, but he clings to the comfort of his parents’ nest—until his father says, “You need to get a job.” And so Mouseling becomes a word collector, risking “heart and snout” to acquire new ones even as they bring him within range of a library cat. Crum (Uh-Oh!) has a good feel for the physicality of language: Mouseling enjoys puckering up his mouth to say “noodles,” and when he says “fur” he can “feel its softness whir in my throat.” O’Rourke (Up! Up! Up! Skyscraper) illustrates from a mouse’s perspective, creating a big, shadowy world full of adventure and potential danger for Mouseling. When the cat finally corners Mouseling it’s to show him a book (turned to Aesop’s aforementioned fable), which Mouseling happily reads aloud—a tribute to the way books can unite even the unlikeliest of friends. Ages 4–7. Author’s agent: Liza Voges, Eden Street Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Emily Mitchell, Wernick & Pratt.

September 15, 2017
Mouseling's family lives in a nest filled with words gleaned from restaurant menus, labels, signs, and packaging.This little mouse narrator feels safe there, whispering and touching the words. When all the rest of the brood leaves to go out in the wide world, Mouseling just wants to stay, until wise Aunt Tillie tells of all the new words that might be found outside the nest. With a few supplies and a map indicating the way home and a warning about cats, Mouseling sets off on an adventure, entering a quiet building with "stacks and rows of blocky things." Young readers will gleefully know that those things are books in a library. There, Mouseling finds wonderful new words to savor and with which to augment the nest. The not-so-fearsome cat that lives in this wondrous place introduces the little protagonist to books, and, in return, little Mouseling reads to him. O'Rourke's bright, digital cartoons depict the action with a light touch, presenting Mouseling's precious words as standout banners. Crum's name for this young mouse is cleverly inventive, and her narrator is as clever as it is. The tale is well-paced with just the right amount of gentle adventure to appeal to young humans discovering the world of words and books for themselves. Encouraging, lovely words. (Picture book. 3-6)

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October 15, 2017
Grades K-2 This is the tale of one young mouse's love of language and reading. Raised surrounded by scraps of text salvaged from a restaurant ( yummy, zest, noodles, cola ), the gender-unspecified Mouseling learned at a young age how to sound words out and, as the last sibling left in the nest, hesitated to leave the comforting letters behind. Eventually tempted by the thought What if there were more words waiting for me to discover them? and armed with a snack, a map, and a hat, Mouseling sets out into the world, soon discovering a library and a simpatico feline friend to read aloud with. The cartoon-style digital media art is sweet, incorporating lots of words, both everyday (milk) and more unusual (tidbit), with many accompanied by visual clues to their meaning. Other literary-related details, meanwhile, are strewn throughout the short, wide pages. This earnest and encouraging title fits on the shelf of books for book-lovers, with just a bit of cat-and-mouse drama thrown into the happy-ending narrative.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2018
Mouseling grows up in a nest full of written words. When he must find a job, Mouseling becomes a "swashbuckler of words," collecting paper words to build his own nest. Warm digital illustrations and a love of words augment a story that otherwise too rapidly shifts from a tale of overcoming fear and leaving home to one of bravery and unexpected friendship...with a cat.

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)