THE MOUSE BRIDE

A mouse, tired of being small and weak, decides to find herself the strongest husband in the world. First, she proposes to the sun, but he informs her there is someone even stronger—a cloud; the cloud, in turn, sends her to the wind, the wind to a house (that he can't blow down), and the house directs her to the cellar, where ``there is a creature who nibbles and gnaws at my timbers.'' Cowley (The Silent One, 1981, etc.) renders a delightful story from the traditional elements of its structure; the text does not ignore the absurdity of the situations—such as the mouse's proposal of marriage to the sun—but warmly mocks them. The pictures—pencil and sturdy, solid watercolors— play up the comic aspects of the story. Christiana gives the enormous sun, cloud, and wind sympathetic human features; the tiny mouse, comically foreshortened and in her wedding gown, is heroically awkward to the end. (Picture book. 3-7)