Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Personal Feelings Aside

Mary and the Mouse, The Mouse and Maryis a little story of Mary, who shares her house with a mouse. They both have a mother, father, sister and brother. They both go to school and learn the same things. They discover each other by accident, and then accidentally on purpose engineer an opportunity to wave at each other every night. They both grow up and go away to school, but their lives cross again.

It's a simple story, but the parallels between the lives are perfectly written for little ones and the illustrations are ingenious. The mouse house furnishings and decorations are worthy of a second (and third) look. As always, I am easily won over by endearing illustrations of children and particularly love the drawings of the two families listening to mother read aloud. (What's not to love about that?)

Country life with real live mice has hardened me to many a mouse tale, but this one is worth overcoming my misgivings.