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A Mouse Told His Mother

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A Mouse Told His Mother
AuthorBethany Roberts
IllustratorMaryjane Begin
LanguageEnglish
GenreChildren's fiction
PublishedApril 1997[1]
PublisherLittle, Brown and Company[1]
Publication placeUnited States
Pages32[1] (unpaged)[2]
ISBN0-316-74982-6

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.

Plot

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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

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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

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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

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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

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ a b c d Norris, Christy (May 1997). "Review: 'A Mouse Told His Mother'". School Library Journal. Vol. 43, no. 5. p. 112. ISSN 0362-8930. Retrieved July 7, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  3. ^ a b c "Review: 'A Mouse Told His Mother'". Kirkus Reviews. No. 7. April 1, 1997. ISSN 1948-7428. ProQuest 917364983. Retrieved July 7, 2023.
  4. ^ a b Basbanes, Nicholas A. (May 4, 1997). "Some new twists spice up children's favorites". Worcester Telegram & Gazette. p. C5. Retrieved July 7, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  5. ^ a b c Neumeyer, Peter F. (April 5, 1998). "Our Mistaken Rage to Improve Children". The Boston Globe. p. K2. Retrieved July 7, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  6. ^ Cooper, Ilene (December 15, 1997). "Review: 'Valentine Mice!'". Booklist. Vol. 94, no. 8. p. 704. ISSN 0006-7385. Retrieved July 7, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  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. Retrieved July 7, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  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. Retrieved July 7, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  11. ^ a b Loer, Stephanie (April 19, 1998). "Mice are the stars of new storybooks". The Boston Globe. p. N7. Retrieved July 7, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  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. Retrieved July 7, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  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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