Customer Reviews

Mouse and His Child, The

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Russell Hoban has been cranking out some of the best literature for all age groups over the last 30 years, and yet during that time he has failed to acquire any recognition here in the states. Most of his books are continuously out of print despite their critical acclaim. The very first of these was The Mouse and his Child, and it lays the ground work for a lot of his other books. His masterpiece, Riddley Walker, is in many ways a creative rehash of many of the themes he presents here, some 15 years earlier. But Hoban should also be acknowledged here for being one of only a handful of authors who really expects something from his readers, and this is especially rare in children literature. Although it is easy to assume the Mouse and his Child is not really a childrens' story at all, this is only due to our low expectations. Hoban manages to address questions loaded with symbolism and philosophical implications. There is far too much going on in this book to list it all. As noted in other reviews, it is in places very dark and depressing, but also funny and deeply rewarding. Probably one of the best books for children written in this half of the century and criminally out of print (but what by Hoban is not except for the Francis books?) Also, find the movie if you can, as it actually holds true to the book marvelously.

When I first heard that Mouse and his Child was coming back into print I was happy but not elated. I already own a few copies I tend to loan to those who need to read slightly warped children literature, and I was also skeptical about the new illustrations. Although Mouse and his Child marked the last joint project between Russell and Lillian Hoban, the illustration matched the text perfectly, and one is stuck asking 'if it already works, why fix it?' With that, I put the book out of my mind and didn't think of it again until I happened upon it at a local book store. Given a chance to peruse through this book I was immediately convinced about the quality of this reissue. The new illustrations are as perfect as Lillian's (though with their own particular bent, eschewing both the comedic and dark aspects of the story) while the book is in all other respects put together beautifully. For those who have been dealing with beat-up paperback copies, your long years of wait are over. The cover cannot be truly appreciated from the small pic on Amazon's page (no slight to them, but you simply need to pick up the book and examine it to see how wonderful it is.) Once you remove the dust jacket, Small's beautiful sketch is found to take the WHOLE of the cover, wrapping around from back to front, while the inside cover shows a series of sketches depicting the constant rotations of the 'mouse and child' toy. I imagine that taste may very in regards to Small's drawings, but they are tasteful and do not depart from the spirit of the story. Its a beautifully crafted book.
As to the story itself, I refered to this as an American classic, and it truly is, though perhaps a classic never appreciated in its place of origin. Mouse and his Child was widely hailed as such throughout Europe but seemed to scare kids in the US (perhaps because Mouse was not intended as a children story but rather got marketed as such.) It remains among the likes of other stories for all ages (its regularly compared to Tolkien, Richard Adams...personally I'd be more likely to compare it to a strange amalgamation of Kenneth Graham and Herman Melville) and addresses difficult issues while posessing a potentially terrifying plot (though black humor abounds). It is hard to think that while Twain's Huck Finn is claimed as one of the pillars of our national identity that we do not equally embrace Hoban's Mouse, for both are journey's through our cultural landscape, both dark and at times frightening, yet ultimately rewarding. Whether 'Mouse' will reach a new generation with this reprinting is hard to say, but it is still good to see this one back on the shelves.

For this literature lover, The Mouse and Hiis Child is the best children's book and one of the best novels I have ever read.
I first read The Mouse and His Child with my 4 year old son. We devoured it in one weekend, read it again one month later and yet again six months later. The book gets better every time. The story is action-packed with an almost endless array of fantastic characters, including what may be the most compelling villain in all of western literature (for me, only Roger Chillingsworth is comparable). The book is hilarious, frightening, and deeply affirming of the power of perseverance, love, and hope. (Sorry that the reviewers on this page who found the book too depressing weren't able to glean this, although it undeniably has very dark moments.)
The ultimate triumph of the mouse father and child is to me so touching, so representative of our hopes for love and security through the struggle of daily life, that I find myself choking up or crying whenever I read the book's finale to my son. This book is probably not for all 4-year olds, but my son, who loves fully imagined, lengthy books, loved it, and he often pretends to be Manny Rat or asks me to walk with him the way the mouse father and child do. I'm happy to oblige, because the relationship between the father and son as they struggle through hardship, the child matures, and the father ages, is poignant in a way that few family romances in literature can compete with.
Not bad for a book about wind-up toys and forest animals.

My 9 year old daughter found this book at a used book sale and we bought this treasure for 50 cents. We read it together and never have I so thoroughly enjoyed reading to any of my children. She scrunched close to me at the violent parts, laughed out loud with me at the funny parts and sobbed with me at the tender, sad parts. I do not think I would have read this book to a 9 year old if I had known what it was like ahead of time...but oh I am happy to have shared this wonderful adventure with my daughter. We loved it! We want to read it again and again. We could hardly breathe sometimes and we gasped out loud. We have oversheltered our children too long. Instead we should hold on tightly to each other and jump in. At the end of the day, we will have found pure strength and joy in each other. This book is a jewel. The language is very difficult but still we moved from page to page. Tonight we finally finished it...for now.

Every copy of "The Mouse and His Child" should come with the following warning label: "ATTENTION - The contents of this book are deeper, more metaphorical, and far too clever for the immature adult. Should you find this book in the hands of such an individual, redirect it immediately to that of a mature child instead". And while that probably wouldn't cut down on the number of complaints you receive, it may well give adult reviewers and readers a taste of what's to come. I picked up "The Mouse and His Child" for three distinct reasons. One - Because a friend of mine is perhaps the greatest fan of Russell Hoban this side of the Atlantic. Two - Because it is considered a children's literary classic and I very much wanted to jump on the bandwagon. Three - I just finished reading, "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" by Kate DiCamillo and was told by a reliable source to read this book before reviewing the former. The classic toys-on-their-own-in-a-cruel-world has been a popular theme since day one. In fact all living toy stories have one element in common: The happy ending is entirely reliant on the toy heroes finding a child to love them in the end. "The Velveteen Rabbit" is obviously the exception to this rule, but even then his transformation is inextricably linked to being loved by a kid. "The Mouse and His Child" is different. In it you have two heroes bound together and incapable of physically extricating themselves from dire situations without aid. Yet without children anywhere to be seen and increasingly frightful situations at hand, these heroes succeed because they have brains and will. All that plus the book beats all others hands down when it comes to the most satisfying happy ending I have EVER encountered in a novel for kids. Ever.

There was once a toy shop in which a tin wind-up toy of a mouse father spinning his child around and around resided. The mouse child wanted a family but the other tin animals in the shop couldn't understand this wish. One day the toy was sold to a family and, in the course of things, was damaged by the family cat. The mouse and his child were thrown out, forever attached by the hands, until they were rescued by a passing tramp and fixed so that now the mouse father would walk ahead and his son backwards. In this way, they set out to face the wide world. In this book they are kidnapped by a malicious rat fiend, befriended by a jack-of-all-trades frog, aid a muskrat, join a theater troupe, find themselves at the bottom of a pond, and in the end find exactly what the mouse child was looking for all along. It's an odd little book but a lovely one and should be required reading for anyone interested in children's literature.

About the time the heroes came across the fortune telling frog I became worried about this book. I've read plenty of deeply depressing fables that fail to earn their slapped on happy endings (see: the aforementioned "Tulane"). When the frog makes it clear that there is more hardship in store of the mice, I grimaced. Great. What fun. Miserable mice for pages and pages and pages. It wasn't like that, though. Sure, our heroes are put through their paces. They face unconscionable acts and are forced to remain in awful locations without the ability to leave. But in time this becomes less and less important. Sure they seem a little miserable before they take charge of the situation, but their misery is no worse than anything you'd find in a chapter of, "A Series of Unfortunate Events". Moreover, once the story starts delving into the metaphysical implications of infinity and where a person (or a mouse) fits into the grander scheme of things... well you start to realize that this is no ordinary children's books.

It's been a long time since I read a book that screamed its publication year quite as loudly as "The Mouse and His Child" does. The book came out in 1967 and you can practically smell the year emanating off the pages. For example, at one point the mice take up with a theatrical troupe. The troupe, run by a crow, has recently renamed itself, "The Caws of Art Experimental Theatre Group". They tend to perform plays with a hint of Beckett and a smidgen of Joyce to them. You end up with characters saying things like, "A manyness of dogs. A moreness of dogs. A too-muchness of dogs. Also a jiggling and a wiggling". Then the troupe sees the mouse and child toys fall over into the dirt and they love the significance of the action. Plus the utopian situation the creatures find themselves in at the end resembles nothing so much as a miniature Greenwich Village, run by tin animals.

I have not seen "The Mouse and His Child" in its original form with its original illustrations. As such, I cannot comment on whether or not illustrator David Small exceeds his predecessor with this new 2001 publication. What I can say is that the book is a stunner. When the endpapers of a story make you tear up even before you read a single word, that's usually a good sign. Small's mice are the perfect heroes. There's a dignity to them that transcends their surroundings and dingy condition. Small had the unenviable job of drawing picture after picture of our hero mice without making the illustrations ever seem repetitive or dull. He succeeds brilliantly at avoiding pitfalls. It helps that the expressions of the mice and their eyes move around a little bit even if they themselves cannot. Drawing in both graphite and pen and inks, Small is able to convey mood and tone with an array of different washes and styles. His pictures never trail off into the silly exuberance sometimes found in his less personal books. Here he keeps his instincts strictly in check and the result is a series of deeply moving and beautiful pictures that deftly complement Hoban's tale.

I was recently in the unenviable position of having to review a children's book (which shall remain nameless) for a professional resource that relied on cute woodland creatures perishing left and right without a smidgen of pity. There was a drop of that emotion in "The Mouse and His Child". At one point the Caws of Art is attacked by an angry audience and it leaves a rabbit (who didn't have any lines anyway) dead. Hoban doesn't dwell on this death, but at the same time he isn't saying that the rabbit wasn't important. It's a blatant act but you never fear that beloved characters will die unexpectedly themselves (though there are a few close shaves). The best way to describe "The Mouse and His Child" is to quote this little passage. At once point two tadpoles are swallowed by a snake. " `It looks bad,' said one of the tadpoles as they disappeared down the snake's throat. `You never know,' said the other. `If we can just get through this, maybe everything will be all right'." That's a bit dour, but it gives you a feel for the intelligent hand behind everything that works in this book. I haven't talked much about the truly spectacular ending of this novel, or even whether or not children would like this title. I don't know myself. It's just an interesting tale, with a feel for the repercussions that come from even the smallest of acts. You may not love it, but you can't deny that this book is a true work of art.

On February 1967, Russel Hoban dedicates this book to three "fathers": the third is a friend "under whose Christmas tree I saw the mouse and his child to dance for the first time". The author worked during three years on this Christmas enchantment. Too much for a children tale. In fact: 1) this book is not only a tale; 2) it is not only for children.

The mouse and his child form a unique small toy, they hold each other's hands and the father, whirling on himself, lifts and lowers the child, dancing all through the spring wind length. Their dream is to free themselves from the dependence of the wind and it will lead them through the amusing but never quiet adventures that begin just out of the toy-shop into which they were safe.

A story of initiation for the child and of wisdom attainment for the father, made of very small things that always appear awfully great.....a bit like in the best successful stories on children. Here too everything has the dimensions suggested by the little heroes eyes.

In this imaginary but never fantastic world, we meet unforgettable characters: the techno-philosopher Musky Mouse, who is to the never-ending search of the value to attribute to the unknown quantity of his last theorem, called "the much in the not much"; the crows Wurza e Furza, invaluable actor-managers of the experimental company "squeak of art", especially famous for the text "The last invisible dog"; the dangerous Manny Rat, a true robber of passed days...and how many others!

As we said, this wonderful book is not a book for children, but it is a book to read to children, a book that must be thought and elaborated, enjoyed by a man and a child together, linked like the dancing small toy, so to understand that this is a great love story. We cannot say it is easy.

Moreover, Hoban puts as epigraph of the tale the wonderful verse of Auden (drawn from "Leap Before You Look"): "the sense of danger must not disappear....."

On the surface, this looks like a "cute toy animal story". That is what I thought when I checked it out from the library as a child.

It is much, much more than that. I remember the melancholy of the book - a strange melancholy, existentially sad yet hopeful at the same time. The concept of forging a family from the other lost and broken souls around you affected me. The rehabilitation of Manny the Rat affected me. The transformation of the larval dragonfly affected me.

This is a deep book. It's not for those looking for a light and happy read - the book addresses some of the darker feelings and sadder parts of life. But it also deals in the transformative power of love - the way the broken can be mended by love.
Despite the sad themes, I loved the book. (Who knows, maybe I was more of a philosopher at age 8 than I am now).

I was dismayed some years ago when, thinking about the book and wanting to re-read it, that it was out of print. And even ex-library paperback copies were going for more than I can afford.

You can bet I'm getting my own copy now. Even if I never have children of my own to share it with, my life still needs this book in it.

Rusted and stuck on the bottom of a lake, and you can't get out until you've seen the last visible dog. That is just one thing the father and his son have to over come. They see war, death, happiness, cold, evil, and then finally the son sees the last visible dog. A tin of dog food saved the lives of the tin mice. Father and son thought that they would never leave the doll house in the store, and the elephant, until they were bought, wrapped up in tissue paper, and put under the Christmas tree to dance. It wasn't a bad life, well, they were put up in an attic until Christmas came again, and then they would do the thing that they were meant to do, dance and never get tired. Everything would have been fine except that the son was not happy . He was upset that the elephant and the doll house weren't with him, and where was his sister seal that had also spent time comforting him in the toy store? Finally he couldn't take it, he did what he was never supposed to do, cry. That's all it took for the tabby cat to attack them and destroy the gears that make them do that dance. Garbage day came and when it went, they went with it. Then, by chance, a tramp saved them. This book is a work of beautiful fantasy, weaving in things that many authors would leave out.
The Mouse and His Child involved many quirky characters. There was the evil Manny rat who used wind-up toys for slaves, uncle frog who was future seer and a fortune teller, a company of woodland actors/actresses who changed their name every year. Elephant, who once had a beautiful costume and always has an elegant attitude, sister seal, who balanced a ball on her head and spun, then last but not least comes the best of all, the mouse and his child. Father mouse puts up with what happens, and does his best to keep his son happy, but several times he is on the brink of giving up, that's when his son saves him. The Mouse's son is always happy , ready to try again, and doesn't know what it means to give up, he wants a real family and is ready to do everything to get that.
I thought this book was fabulously done, involving situations that bring you tears, but just as you get ready to cry, something good happens. It is my opinion that if anyone is interested in a classic then they need to read this. The story brings to life all of these wonderful wind-up toys. Even if you don't realize it at first you come to see that there is a moral to this book, in fact there is more than one. This particular book is filled with little things to figure out life, for example, "why times what equals how" and other much-in-little equations. Russell Hoban writes it perfectly, but to top it off, there are illustrations that you wouldn't believe. They prove that this book is more then a story of survival, but of something much more, you need to read it to find out. I'll give you one clue to the meaning of the story, a can of Bonzo dog food.

When I was at school I had one of those inspirational teachers - a cross between Miss Jean Brodie and Robin Williams (at least twice) - who simultaneously scares the pants off you and makes you long for her approval. Between the ages of 11 and 14 she made us read five books a term. One year, she suggested A Mouse and His Child. She said to ignore the cover - it wasn't really a children's book at all - and that it would scare me stupid. I started it, obviously determined to prove her wrong and no doubt as a result, found it tedious, `for kids', and gave up after one chapter. Her irritation and disappointment were clear, and a suitable punishment for pretending I'd finished. Now 15 years later, I've just found my copy of the book in amongst my hoard of Puffins and was drawn in by my long-lasting guilt (and the tempting scarcity of words to the page). As you've probably guessed by now, she was right. It's so funny I almost wanted to have children just so I could read it to them. Lots of the humour is for adults (one of the characters turned to Spike Milligan in my head) but there is plenty for juniors in the way of well-measured adventures and clever tableaux. It's dreadfully sad in places - I find it hard enough watching grown men eat dinner alone, so you can imagine my woe at the thought of a fading clockwork mouse pushing his clockwork son ahead of him for years and years and years, totally dependent on the wims and winding capabilities of random strangers. And in true US style, it's morally sound, though not emetic, and has a perfect ending, happy but cool. So, sorry Miss Brewis. Got any other suggestions?

A children's book? Cleverly disguised as such, perhaps, but so much more. It's all here. How we come to exist, how we get cast out of comfortable repitition, how we survive the contemplation of infinity, how we find purpose, and how we make a family with other damaged (but not defeated) souls. And if God has only two things to say to us, you'll find out what they are.