The Mouse and His Child (Puffin Books) - Softcover

Hoban, Russell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140308415 ISBN 13: 9780140308419

Publisher: Puffin Books, 1976

Synopsis

Rear cover creased, page edges tanned, 1976 Puffin 1st. Shipped from the U.K. All orders received before 3pm sent that weekday.

About this title

Review

Like so many exceptional children's books, Russell Hoban's The Mouse and His Child clearly wasn't intended only for kid consumption. It certainly qualifies as a fantastic story for children: the characters are entertaining and memorable, the images powerful, the pacing tight, and the message unique and lasting. But this sweet, melancholy fable about a wind-up pair of tin mice--a dancing father and son joined at the hands--explores so many different themes of hope, perseverance, transformation, and the nature of existence (while still managing to be quite funny at times) that it's the sort of book that demands to be kept around for a lifetime of rereading.

The father and son's redemptive quest to become "self-winding" takes them through all sorts of trials, from the toy store to the dump to the swamp and back again, and all along the way the pair runs afoul of Hoban's well-realized and often menacing menagerie of characters, including the slave-driver Manny Rat, the distracted thinker Muskrat, and Crow and Mrs. Crow and their Caws of Art Experimental Theatre Group. (These last provide some of the best scenes in the book, getting a surprising amount of philosophical meat out of a play called The Last Visible Dog: "What doesn't it mean! There's no end to it--it just goes on and on until it means anything and everything, depending on who you are and what your last visible dog is.")

If you're only familiar with Russell Hoban from his Frances books (Bread and Jam for Frances), this gripping, sometimes disturbing, occasionally even violent novel might come as something of a surprise. But if you've read any of Hoban's later work, like Pilgermann or The Moment Under the Moment, then you know what this sophisticated and extraordinarily graceful writer is capable of, and why The Mouse and His Child deserves praise as one of the more profound children's works ever written. (Ages 9 to adult) --Paul Hughes

About the Author

Russell Hoban's career spanned five decades in which he wrote more than sixty books, including such children's classics as Bedtime for Frances and The Mouse and His Child, adult fiction including Riddley Walker and Turtle Diary, and several collections of poetry and essays.
David Small is the illustrator of many award-winning books, including The Library, the Caldecott Medal winner So You Want to Be President?, and the Caldecott Honor books The Gardener and One Cool Friend. He lives in Michigan with his wife, the writer Sarah Stewart, and an outdoor cat named Mabel.

Edition details

• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Publication date: 1976
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140308415
• ISBN 13: 9780140308419
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192