Customer Reviews

The Greentail Mouse

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I disagree with the first review...it is precisely the ambiguity of this tale that makes it so delightful and so easy to turn to again and again as we try to puzzle it out. I'm not sure we're meant to "know" everything, or would want to. The mystery, and ambiguity, of lived experience is the most "real" thing of all--and children get that. My students and I still haven't figured out The Greentail Mouse and we still enjoy trying.

This book seems a little dark for a children's book. The mice prepare for there first Mardi Gras and make masks that look like monsters and forget they are mice and become the monsters.

It seems the author is really either voicing his opinion of Mardi Gras or just thought of being careful not to lose yourself in something bad or I suppose both those things.

Why it is called the Greentail Mouse is because one of the mice tail gets paint on it and it never can remove the paint. A reminder that even if they forget that they were monsters once and to not to return to that way of being.

I think it is a good message in general I don't know if it has to be applied to Mardi Gras as I have never participated in the event but I can see how it fits

In a take on the town mouse and the country mouse, Leonni tells the tale of happy forest mice who try to recreate a Mardi Gras celebration of their own, after hearing about it from a city mouse. This fable is, as always beautifully illustrated; although this time, there are no torn-paper mice, but, as my seven-year-old noticed, "really painted" pictures. However, we never find out why the mouse`s tail stays green -- as a reminder, perhaps of the dangers of trying to be what you are not? A little too ambiguous, maybe. Not as captivating as so many of his other stories. Save your money and borrow this from the library.