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MOUSE TALES by Arnold Lobel

MOUSE TALES

illustrated by Arnold Lobel

Pub Date: Sept. 27th, 1972
ISBN: 0064440133
Publisher: Harper & Row

In quietly animated pink-toned pictures and resonantly simple words, Papa mouse puts his seven sons to sleep with seven bedtime stories. Lobel's handling of the cloud that becomes a cat and frightens little mouse until his mother reassures him is basic without banality; there is an affecting absurdity, reminiscent of Frog and Toad, in the two friends — one very tall and one very short — who see everything at different eye levels ("Hello, roof" says one while the other bids hello to the floor) but view a rainbow together; and the account of the mouse who floods a whole town with his bath water has a fresh if finely tempered silliness. Once again Lobel demonstrates that a beginning reader can be gentle in humor, resourceful with limited vocabulary, and even subtle in simplicity.