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Summary
Summary
It's time for a vacation! This is a fresh take on the Aesop classic fable, The Town Mouse and Country Mouse.
City Mouse visits his cousin in the country- but while he loves to dance in the barn, he experiences spartan meals, unseen predators, unbearable heat and it's too much quiet! City Mouse finds that the country isn't as restful and pleasant as he'd hoped. And so, the two mice hop a train to the bustling city. While Country Mouse appreciates the plentiful city snacks, it is much too loud, and he's afraid of cats! Perhaps City Mouse and Country Mouse have different ideas of what makes for a perfect home.
Illustrated by the acclaimed Caldecott Honor illustrator, R. Gregory Christie with a signature sophisticated pallet and painterly style.
Author Notes
R. Gregory Christie has illustrated more than forty books for young people. He received a Caldecott honor for his illustrations for Freedom in Congo Square. He is a two-time Golden Kite recipient, a three-time recipient of The New York Times' 10 best Illustrated Children's Books of the Year Award, a five-time recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award in Illustration, a winner of the Boston Globe's Horn Book Award, and the NAACP Image Award. Mr. Christie Lives in Georgia.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Christie (Sugar Hill: Harlem's Historic Neighborhood) presents a stripped-down version of Aesop's "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse" that brings the fable into the present day. City Mouse decamps to visit his "country cousin" after a bad night's sleep in his apartment; readers see the brown mouse clutching two pillows to his ears while music streams from the turntables at a neighbor's all-night party. The theme of music carries through Christie's retelling: Country Mouse takes City Mouse to a jug-band jamboree, and when the mice return to the city together, dancers fill a subway platform-until a cat sends the mice scattering. While Aesop's original favored the quiet, safe country life, Christie's version is in line with adaptations that recognize the pros and cons of both settings. On the way to and from the jamboree, City Mouse is unnerved by the owls watching them. "This seems dangerous," he says. "It is," responds his cousin. "Keep walking." Vivid acrylic paintings confer a dancer's grace on the mice, whether they're traversing a vast field or looking out on a ruddy sea of buildings. Ages 4-8. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
In this reimagining of "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse," lush acrylic gouache paintings have fun with both settings: a "country meal of rice, beans and barley" before a folksy jamboree; colorful skylines and a subway station in which mice dance to a boom box. Christie balances honoring Aesop's fable and infusing his version with a hip, modern-day sensibility. (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Award-winning illustrator Christie brings The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse into the twenty-first century using gouache paintings as vibrant and energetic as the mice themselves. City Mouse needs a vacation from the noise of Mousetropolis and sets off to visit Country Mouse for some relaxation. Soon, however, City Mouse has second thoughts. Despite the fun of a banjo jamboree, it's too quiet, and he has the unnerving feeling of being watched! (He is, by an owl.) Country Mouse joins his cousin for a trip back to the city, and they are delightfully depicted riding atop the train, hurtling past blurry treetops. The excitement doesn't stop once they reach Mousetropolis: there's dancing in the subway station, rich foods to eat, and mice in conservative suits doing important things on their smartphones. When a cat appears, everyone scatters: Quicker than a mouse can nibble through a wheel of provolone, Country Mouse was back in the country. Just when you think there are enough fables to fill every library, a reimagining like this one comes along to enchant young and old alike.--Mazza, April Copyright 2015 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
Life's pretty great for Pepper, a fluff-ball gray house cat who has eyes like lime-green saucers and firm personal boundaries. Then his owner gives him a young companion, and it all goes south. The kitten tumbles around, making a mess. Only when the two collude to blame it on a mellow-looking dog can the cats be friends. It's a perfectly paced little tale, and Preston-Gannon composes each page with geometric precision, setting her charismatic pets against a sleek black background. MR. POSTMOUSE'S ROUNDS Written and illustrated by Marianne Dubuc. 32 pp. Kids Can Press. $17.95. (Picture book; ages 3 to 8) Picture a trip through a Richard Scarry-like workaday community gone bananas. The latest brilliance from Dubuc ("The Lion and the Bird") features a chipper gray mouse dutifully pulling his wagon to make deliveries to a roster of creatures including bats, octopuses, dragons and yetis. Their dwellings teem with delicately detailed secret passageways, underground bunkers, Rube Goldberg contraptions and clever references to fairy tales. The deadpan prose lets the visuals steal the show. MOUSETROPOLIS Written and illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. 32 pp. Holiday House. $16.95. (Picture book; ages 3 to 8) Christie's snappy reimagining of "The City Mouse and the Country Mouse" gorgeously celebrates both travel and home, with graceful-looking mice whose oversize ears somehow make them seem soulful. With rich emerald hills and mysterious black trees, the country is serene and inviting, but it's hard to argue with the city's liveliness: There's "lots to eat" and "music and dancing everywhere," including a knockout spread of hip, joyful mice dancing to a boombox in a subway station. MUMMY CAT By Marcus Ewert. Illustrated by Lisa Brown. 48 pp. Clarion/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 5 to 9) Egyptology takes a Halloween-friendly turn in this winning rhymed tale of a cat once owned by a girl-queen called Hatshup-set. We meet him as a rather cute mummy, awake to check if "his loving friend" has come back. He wanders forlornly, looking at painted scenes of his life with the queen and her horrid death by scorpion bite. Brown's tableaus are dynamic and lovely, with a sinister plot playing out in the background. There are hieroglyphics to decode, too, and a key at the end. THE STORY OF DIVA AND FLEA By Mo Willems. Illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi. 69 pp. Hyperion. $14.99. (Early chapter book; ages 5 to 8) Willems departs from his beloved, angsty Elephant and Piggie early readers with this lighthearted valentine to Paris, handsomely illustrated by DiTerlizzi. Diva is a small, proud dog who guards - or so she believes - a grand apartment building. Her orderly world is rocked by Flea, a street cat who's a dedicated flâneur. Together they stroll the city, helping each other overcome certain embarrassing limitations. Each brief chapter charms, topped off with a cameo by Willems at the end. ONLINE An expanded visual presentation of this week's column at nytimes.com/books.
School Library Journal Review
Gr K-2-A retelling of Aesop's "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse." After a letter arrives from his country cousin, City Mouse, unwilling to tolerate the noise emanating from a neighboring apartment in Mousetropolis, decides to vacation in the country. There are humorous touches in the brief text, but it is the illustrations, executed in acrylic gouache, that make this version a delight. A striking scene depicts the cousins hurrying through the woods to attend a jamboree where they will dance accompanied by mice playing a washboard, jug, and homemade bass. Spidery black tree limbs tower over them, and text reading, "Whoooooooooooo!" stretches across the page. Several spreads later, that sound-maker, his large yellow eyes staring out at readers, appears front and center. When Country Mouse becomes disenchanted with his quiet life, City Mouse, unimpressed with country food and fearful of that owl, joins him in a decision to leave for the city. With their huge ears and big black eyes, they each fill a page as they arrive at "the same idea." As they travel atop a red train, large predominantly black and green diagonal brush strokes suggest rapidly disappearing scenery. Station entertainers, "busy mice" in suits and ties holding phones and tablets, and the owl's counterpart-a large cat that sends everybody scurrying-are all part of the city scenes. Ultimately both mice determine that their own environment is "home," but it is left to readers to formulate the fable's moral. VERDICT A wonderful rendering that should be part of every folktale collection.-Marianne Saccardi, Children's Literature Consultant, Greenwich, CT © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A 21st-century update to Aesop's enduring fable finds cousins City Mouse and Country Mouse spending time in each other's locale to realize that they both prefer life at home. Flowing acrylic-based gouache illustrations give this retelling a modern twist. Alternating between Mousetropolis and the countryside, the tale opens with City Mouse, who is annoyed with the incessant loud noise of the city. Receiving a letter from his cousin Country Mouse, City Mouse seizes upon the rural vacation opportunity. Although he lets loose at the farmhouse jamboree, City Mouse finds it hard to adjust to the eerily "quiet" surroundings. The food is different, the natural sounds and silences are creepy, and City Mouse can't shake the feeling of being watched. They agree to a new plan. Country Mouse and City Mouse jump a train to the city. There's dancing in the subways, ample food, and phalanxes of device-attached mice doing "important things"and back home goes Country Mouse. Christie utilizes appealingly mouse-based language"quicker than a mouse can nibble through a wheel of provolone"to tell his story, and he carefully acknowledges the dangers of country life as well as those of the city. The illustrations effectively depict the dislocated mice's subjective impressions of each setting; the tilt of an eyebrow communicates emotion. A welcome addition to any folk-tale collection, this clever retelling and its warm, embracing illustrations demonstrate the enduring appeal of this classic tale. (Picture book/folk tale. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.