A Mouse Told His Mother

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A Mouse Told His Mother
A Mouse Told His Mother.jpg
Author Bethany Roberts
IllustratorMaryjane Begin
LanguageEnglish
GenreChildren's fiction
PublishedApril 1997 [1]
Publisher Little, Brown and Company [1]
Publication placeUnited States
Pages32 [1] (unpaged) [2]
ISBN 0-316-74982-6

A Mouse Told His Mother is a 1997 picture book by Bethany Roberts, with illustrations by Maryjane Begin. The book, about a mouse boy whose mother tries coaxing him to bed while he plans to take adventures, received critical acclaim.

Contents

Plot

A boy mouse boasts of going on an adventure during the nighttime hours, but on every attempt, his mother recommends doing or taking something more important on the way to bed; [1] [3] [4] the scenarios that unfold across the eleven double spreads [5] all begin with the title phrase. [2] At the end of the story, the mouse—still going on adventures in his imagination—flies down on a parachute across starry skies, much to the puzzlement of the mother who nonetheless wishes to him, "Sweet dreams. And good night." [5]

Background

The book came out almost a year before Valentine Mice!, another Bethany Roberts work with mouse characters which served as the follow-up to 1995's Halloween Mice!. [6] [7] Roberts' illustrator partner, Maryjane Begin, hailed from Providence, Rhode Island. [8]

Thematic analysis

Peter F. Neumeyer of The Boston Globe saw A Mouse Told His Mother as an alternative to Helen Cooper's The Boy Who Wouldn't Go to Bed, which was published the same year [9] and used the same basic plot: "Mother wants [her child] to go to bed, child doesn't want to. True to formula, child departs on his own fantasy trip." [5]

Release and reception

Announced in July 1996, [10] A Mouse Told His Mother was published by Little, Brown in April 1997 [1] to critical acclaim. Publishers Weekly called it "a captivating picture book...[in which] Roberts's neatly condensed prose plays straight man to Begin's minutely detailed and lushly panoramic artwork, which catapults readers into the mouse child's imaginative alter-world." [1] The Worcester Telegram & Gazette , along with Stephanie Loer of The Boston Globe, gave word on the engaging large-scale artwork. [4] [11] "Here is a first-rate bedtime book," Loer's review concluded. "The story is clever, full of fantasy, fun, and adventure, but eventually it gets the job done—it lulls a child to sleep." [11]

Kirkus Reviews and the Language Arts journal observed the conversational dynamic between the mother and son in its pages, [3] [12] which reminded the former and PW of Margaret Wise Brown's The Runaway Bunny . [1] [3] Publishers Weekly, along with Christy Norris in the School Library Journal , respectively took note of the title words' "skillful" and "lulling" repetition. [1] [2]

Ilene Cooper of Booklist concurred with PW's reviewers, [13] as did SLJ's Norris: "Delightful...thoughtful and well-illustrated... Begin's illustrations successfully blend little mouse's fantasies with reality. When he imagines he's flying an airplane, his patchwork quilt becomes the landscape below." [2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Devereaux, Elizabeth; Roback, Diane (March 17, 1997). "Review: 'A Mouse Told His Mother'". Publishers Weekly . Vol. 244, no. 11. p. 82. ISSN   0000-0019. ProQuest   197029558 . Retrieved July 7, 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Norris, Christy (May 1997). "Review: 'A Mouse Told His Mother'" . School Library Journal . Vol. 43, no. 5. p. 112. ISSN   0362-8930. ProQuest   211700263 . Retrieved July 7, 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 "Review: 'A Mouse Told His Mother'". Kirkus Reviews . No. 7. April 1, 1997. ISSN   1948-7428. ProQuest   917364983 . Retrieved July 7, 2023.
  4. 1 2 Basbanes, Nicholas A. (May 4, 1997). "Some new twists spice up children's favorites" . Worcester Telegram & Gazette . p. C5. ProQuest   268662725 . Retrieved July 7, 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 Neumeyer, Peter F. (April 5, 1998). "Our Mistaken Rage to Improve Children" . The Boston Globe . p. K2. ProQuest   405211234 . Retrieved July 7, 2023.
  6. ↑ Cooper, Ilene (December 15, 1997). "Review: 'Valentine Mice!'" . Booklist . Vol. 94, no. 8. p. 704. ISSN   0006-7385. ProQuest   235391793 . Retrieved July 7, 2023.
  7. ↑ Maughan, Shannon (September 18, 1995). "Review: 'Halloween Mice!'" . Publishers Weekly . Vol. 242, no. 38. p. 89. ISSN   0000-0019. ProQuest   197012500 . Retrieved July 7, 2023– via Gale General OneFile.
  8. ↑ Kaplan, Michael (January 1996). "Maryjane Begin". Communication Arts. Vol. 37, no. 8. Palo Alto, Texas. p. 94. ISSN   0010-3519. ProQuest   215884104.
  9. ↑ Marino, Jane (July 1997). "Review: 'The Boy Who Wouldn't Go to Sleep'" . School Library Journal . Vol. 43, no. 7. p. 60. ISSN   0362-8930. ProQuest   211698195 . Retrieved July 7, 2023.
  10. ↑ Stone, Alison (July 22, 1996). "Sneak previews: Spring 1997 children's books" (PDF). Publishers Weekly . Vol. 243, no. 30. p. 211. ISSN   0000-0019. ProQuest   197001890 . Retrieved July 7, 2023.
  11. 1 2 Loer, Stephanie (April 19, 1998). "Mice are the stars of new storybooks" . The Boston Globe . p. N7. ProQuest   405222479 . Retrieved July 7, 2023.
  12. ↑ Watson, Dorothy (December 1997). "Beyond Decodable Texts—Supportive and Workable Literature" (PDF). Language Arts. 74 (8). Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English: 639. doi:10.58680/la19973262. ISSN   0360-9170. JSTOR   41482925. ProQuest   196844962 . Retrieved July 7, 2023.
  13. ↑ Cooper, Ilene (April 1, 1997). "Review: 'A Mouse Told His Mother'" . Booklist . Vol. 93, no. 15. p. 1339. ISSN   0006-7385. ProQuest   235381840 . Retrieved July 7, 2023– via Gale General OneFile.
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