Home Making: House Mouse by Michael Hall

ONE CHILLY MORNING, A MOUSE TRAVELED....

The Mouse climbed up and over a high hill, and paddled across a wide stream and wandered into a patch of wild asparagus, and spots ...

SOMETHING WARM AND WELCOME.

It was a warm, welcoming fire. But it needed something to keep it in, so she made...

A STOVE!

The stove keeps the fire going and the mouse went...

WHERE THE CHILLINESS WASN'T...

and the fox won't go near the place where the fire is. So Mouse builds a beautiful stone floor for the stove, and then a strong wooden roof to keep keep her fire dry and her asparagus soup simmering on the stove. But she still needs something.

And when one night when she heard a sound...

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK,

Nobody was there until Mouse builds a strong wooden door to open. And at the door there were weary wanderers who needed to be inside, with a sack of veggies that needed making into soup.

And they did.

And the House Mouse is always happy to welcome all to sit by her warm fire, in author-illustrator Michael Hall's latest picture book, House Mouse (Harper/Greenwillow, 2021). In his trademark geometric mixed media art, Michael Hall has his character craft his own home to express the wise words that it takes a lot of living to make a house a home. Creating a home takes hard work and like a good soup, just the right ingredients and someone with whom to love the house and savor the soup.

Says Horn Book's reviewer, "Hall’s use of onomatopoeia and geometric shapes (a triangle for the mouse’s body; rectangles for the house’s frame and floor) naturally emphasize and extend the construction theme. . . . . This tale of a mouse and her house is aglow with tenacity, generosity, and good cheer.” For more of Michael Hall's storytelling magic, see some of his other noted pictured books, Wonderfall, and My Heart Is Like a Zoo and Red: A Crayon's Story.