Customer Reviews

A Mouse's Life (Nature Upclose)

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

 

 

Only someone who has really studied and spent time watching and enjoying the delightful comings and goings of a busy mouse could have written and illustrated this wonderful picture book. The illustrations are beautifully realistic and the story reflects the energy and briefness of a mouse's life.

A WONDERFUL book! I use this in my mammals unit for my 2nd graders. The author has a knack for getting the most information across in just a few words. Of course the pictures tell most of the story.

I highly recommend this book and others in the Nature Upclose series.

I bought this book and others in the series for my daughter (7). I respectfully disagree with the reviewer from Pittsburg. I thought the author did a wonderful job in getting the reader to feel empathy for the mouse and my daughter and I learned a lot about their life cycle. The author uses his text sparingingly and lets the pictures tell a lot of the story.

I do agree with Pittsburg that the illustrations are beautifully done. They are realistic and yet you almost get a sense of a personality. It makes you care about the mouse, without making it cartoony. My daughter owns four other of Himmelman's Nature Uplcose series (Luna, Monarch, Slug and Hummingbird) and this is hands down her favorite.

As a single father, I put a lot of thought into what books my daughter reads and love it when we both agree on what is good and what isn't. This book will get a lot more readings before she moves on to the next one. (she loves the mouse babies!)

Choosing nonfiction books for children is more difficult than one would imagine. Sure there are many books out there as publishers are putting out more and more expository texts for kids, but much of it is mediocre at best.
_A Mouse's Life_ is the typical quickly and poorly done nonfiction text. The illustrations are charming, gentle and engaging but there is a MAJOR sense of disconnect between them and the text. The illustrations are very appropriate for young children or a fictional picture book, while the text deals with the sometimes harsh reality of the life of mouse. Kids old enough to understand the text will be put off by the childish, illustrations. Kids attracted to the drawings won't understand why the mouse mates with a female mouse and then leaves her, why he is chewing on the head of a bug, that kind of thing. It really isn't a very useful book, but the pictures are nice.