This afternoon I read Once a Mouse by Marcia Brown. It's a story about a hermit who changes a mouse into a cat and then into a dog and then into a tiger....each time the mouse changes, he becomes more and more vain and proud.
This story is originally from the Indian Hitopadesha which is a book of short stories about morality and knowledge. These stories always use animals as the main characters.
Marcia Brown has retold the story using wood cuttings...which creates really neat illustrations. In 1962, Once a Mouse won a Caldecott Medal for these wonderful wood cuttings. Very neat!
My Quick Thoughts:
Though the woodcuts are great, this books was not fun for me to read to my kids...the place where the sentences were broken and then finished after the page turn really drove me nuts. I really loved how the hermit protected the little mouse at the beginning...he took the mouse in his hand and twisted his hand around so that the cat would not get the mouse...how tender! The message was a good one and the book was fine...not going on my "must read" list though....sorry Mrs.Brown...your woodcuts rock though!!
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