More Mice? Splat the Cat: Twice the Mice by Rob Scotton, creator

DEAR BRICE,

WOULD YOU LIKE TO VISIT? WE COULD PLAY OUR FAVORITE GAME, MICE AND DICE!

YOUR BROTHER,
SEYMOUR

When Splat the Cat learns that his buddy Seymour the Mouse is missing his brother, he goes into instant host with most mode.

He breaks out the brie and the bleu and dons his Swiss cheese tee! He stays awake half the night trying to come up with a really wonderful way to welcome Brice!

At last he thinks he's got the perfect plan. He is sure he's got the perfect idea. It's twice as nice!

"I'LL MAKE A SCULPTURE OUT OF ICE!"

And the likeness of Brice is worth the work. Splat is ecstatic.

But the next morning, when Seymour and Splat dash downstairs to welcome Brice, the sculpture has melted quite a bit.

IT WAS NOW VERY SMALL.

And the impetuous Splat slips in the slippery ice water, Ker-SPLAT! Splat's big welcome falls flat.

But Brice is nice about his diminished likeness, declaring it the perfect size for a mouse, in the latest I Can Read Level 1 cat-astrophe, Splat the Cat: Twice the Mice (I Can Read Level 1) (Harper, 2015). Based on Rob Scotton's super-star cat, with text by Jacqueline Rasnick and Scotton-style illustrations by Robert Eberz, this beginning reader book gives early readers a workout with the -ICE sound and a new visit with the irrepressible Splat the Cat.

For more cool cat tales, pair this one with Splat's snow-job saga, Splat the Cat and the Snowy Day Surprise.

Metro Elephant: Little Elliot Big City by Mike Curato

LITTLE ELLIOT LOVED LIVING IN A BIG CITY, BUT SOMETIMES IT WAS HARD BEING SMALL IN SUCH A SMALL PLACE.

HE HAD TO BE CAREFUL NOT TO GET STEPPED ON ON THE SUBWAY PLATFORM.

STILL, ELLIOT ENJOYED THE LITTLE THINGS.

It's not easy being a very small spotted elephant in the Big Apple. But Little Elliot takes pleasure in his snug little home, the excitement of the skyscrapers and the thronging sidewalks, and his daily strolls, looking at the wonderful things in the windows downtown. He bravely takes the subway even though he's only knee high to all the people in the crowd.

But Elliot's greatest longing is to have one of those glorious cupcakes in the bakery window. And though he holds his money high in his trunk and jumps up as high as he can, the counterman never notices him among the crowd buying pastries.

But then one day he meets someone who is smaller, much smaller than he is.

"HELLO, MOUSE. WHAT'S WRONG?" ASKED ELLIOT.

"I'M TRYING TO REACH SOME FOOD, BUT I'M TOO SMALL!" SAID MOUSE. "AND I'M SO VERY HUNGRY!"

Suddenly Elliot sees a small ally in the solution to his cupcake problem, in Mike Curato's fantasy story of friendship in the big city, Little Elliot, Big City (Henry Holt and Company, 2014). Elliot is a small polka-dotted toy elephant who goes surprisingly unnoticed in the hubbub of big city streets. Observing the metro scene is the chief charm of this book. Curato's big city has been aptly compared to Edward Hopper's cityscapes, and his muted palette and his portrayal of a small toy elephant, with the body language of a toddler, roaming a retro metropolis, provides a Paddington sort of charm to this old-fashioned story. The author pictures Elliot devising ways to reach the sink in his apartment, making his miniature way down to the sidewalk from his brownstone home, and, like a kid in a candy shop, admiring the goodies in his neighborhood bakery, al in delightful illustrations which create a warm and cozy ambiance to set off Curato's sweet story of friendship found (and cupcake shared).

Houston, We Have a Problem: Mousetronaut by Mark Kelly

The space shuttle was set for a launch and the astronauts are doing their last-minute training.

NASA is sending along some special guests for this flight, and they are training, too!

One mouse was smaller than the rest. His name was Meteor.

Being a lightweight is actually not a bad thing in space, but Meteor knows he has to be the best mouse he can be to qualify for the mission, and he is proud when he succeeds in making the team.

The launch goes well and soon the whole crew is in space, each one busy with his duties, and Meteor discovers that he loves free-floating around his enclosure just like the rest of the crew. But then, something happens that could bring disaster to their whole mission:

...One astronaut noticed the key to the control panel stuck between the monitors.

When he tries to get it out, it gets wedged farther down.

"This isn't good," he said.

And for squeezing into a very narrow space, there is only one on board who has the right stuff!

Meteor retrieves the key and saves the mission, in astronaut Mark Kelly's Mousetronaut: Based on a (Partially) True Story (Paula Wiseman Books) (Simon & Schuster, 2012). Kelly tells this "partially true tale" well, appropriately illustrated by noted artist C.F. Payne, who is equally facile with the astronautical hardware, the spacescape outside, and the characters, both human and rodent, in this story. Kelly's afterword points out that his inspiration for his intrepid mouse hero was the smallest mouse on his Endeavor mission, the only one who refused to cling to his cage and seemed to enjoy weightlessness throughout the mission. Kelly's afterword also includes links to space-related games, activities, and information for small would-be astronaut readers.

..."sure to please many fellow pipsqueaks back on Earth," says The New York Times reviewer.

Nice Twice!! Mice by Rose Fyleman and Lois Ehlert

THEIR TAILS ARE LONG,

THEIR FACES SMALL.

THEY HAVEN'T GOt ANY CHINS AT ALL.

There is no doubt who these characters are, those little guys who run free and who sample things people don't care to share with them.

But despite their naughty nightime nibbles, people, particularly picture book people, have a thing for mice. And it's easy to see why in Caldecott artist Lois Ehlert's brand-new redo of Rose Fyleman's Mice (Beach Lane Books, 2012). In her spare and deadpan rhyming description of these charming little rodentia, first published in 1932, Fyleman's short verse has become a classic over the years, but Ehlert's eye-catching collage version, is its best setting yet.

Using bits and pieces of art supplies and found objects in her now famous tactile style, Ehlert constructs her two little pillagers from textured torn paper and twine, craftily using the unraveled tips of the twine as feet just right for scampering ahead of the mostly unseen but looming night duty cat, paper hole reinforcements for their sharp little eyes, and pointy snippets of crinkled construction paper for their long tails. Along the way Ehlert works in bananas, crackers, popcorn, and finally cupcakes iced with sprinkles on the way to the expected escape from the cat, as the two late-night noshers picnic gleefully inside their snug mouse hole in the baseboard.

I think mice are nice, and you will, too, especially in Ehlert's magnificent remake of Rose Fyleman's Mice.

Less Is... More by I. C. Springman

NOTHING.

SOMETHING.

MORE

AND MORE

AND MORE.

In a fabulously illustrated modern fable, author I.C. Springman and illustrator Brian Lies have given us a spare, 44-word parable of the perils of acquisitiveness taken to its illogical extreme, compulsive hoarding.

Springman's and Lies' tale features that most-collection-prone of critters, Magpie, who begins, as a bird with the blues, with nothing. A helpful mouse offers the gift of a blue-and-red swirled marble, and Magpie gratefully builds a roomy nest to set off his prize. His eyes glow as he admires the marble, and he is soon off to find other objects to ornament his home--a red lego, a golden schilling, someone's missing car keys, a broken strand of beads--and a collector is born.

Plenty is not enough for Magpie, as he continues to soar home with more objects, so many that his original nest becomes so full that there is no room for him in it. No matter. Another nest is built, and he sets out to furnish it splendidly with even more bright and shiny objects--from a pushpin to a pocket watch, a padlock, a toy car, even a mirror which reflects his bright eyes as he lovingly tucks a copper penny in among his treasures. The second nest bulges, portentously weighing down its limb even as his friend Mouse pronounces judgement on his new lifestyle:

ENOUGH!

The weighty collection can no longer be supported, and with a catastrophic CRACK, the limb fails and the heavy hoard cascades to the ground, burying its creator upside down, with only his shocked, straight-up legs in view. Mouse and friends hastily remove the debris of Magpie's collection, piece by piece, until he is at last freed from the weight of his possessions, with single fork left holding part of a peel-off non-fat yogurt top like a banner, one which proclaims Magpie's new state--FREE.

When is plenty enough? In a consumer society where closets are larger than our grandparents' bedrooms, most of us have begun to wonder the same thing. When is BIG big enough and when is enough stuff too much stuff? The award-winning Brian Lies' illustrations elegantly flesh out Springman's minimalist text in a tale that is sure to amaze kids with the sheer realism of its Walter Wick-like detailed objects and impress adults with its telling touches of irony. Magpie's right leg is banded, bearing, as one sharp reviewer points out, the number 3141 (suggesting the multiplying power of pi), while all the various detritus of human life is clearly symbolic of the over-abundant possessions of a modern life which generate (what else?) a profitable plethora of businesses whose sole mission is to whisk away that excessive stuff.

Springman's and Lies' More (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012), forthcoming March 6, is a light-hearted little fable which also functions fully as an engaging picture book for youngsters, who will focus more on the riches of the brilliantly executed pictures, the personable mice, and the amazing plenitude of visual variety that Lies' illustrations offer rather than on its warning of the perils of plenty.

The Love Boat: Secrets at Sea by Richard Peck

"Everybody has two futures," Aunt Fannie said.

"The future you choose. Or, the future that chooses you.

Here's your other future, Helena. The one you can choose. If you dare."

When the small-town nouveau riche Upstairs Cranstons decide to attend Queen Victoria's Jubilee Celebration in hopes of marrying off their sallow and unpromising older daughter, the Downstairs Cranston mouse family, headed by oldest sister Helena, faces a quandary. How will they live without the generous crumbs provided by the hearty-eating Cranstons and their clumsy cook Mrs. Flint? Helena decides to make the trek next door to the hidden home of her cousins to consult Aunt Fannie, the mouse matriarch of the clan and her crystal ball. What she learns is even more worrisome than the departure of the Upstairs Cranstons.

Not only is little sister Louise visiting the youngest Cranston daughter for nightly gossip as she suspected. It seems that her rascally little brother Lamont is skipping school and into all kinds of mischief with Gideon McSorley, bad-boy scion of the lowest-class mouse family around, and worse yet, middle sister Beatrice is slipping out at night to meet with this same rapscallion Gideon. That is the future that Aunt Fannie warns her of, the future that is sure to choose her family if she stays where she is.

But that other future is incredibly daunting to the Downstairs Cranstons. Their mother and two older sisters drowned in the rain barrel and they are justly terrified of water. But Aunt Fannie's fortunetelling is asking them to leave everything they treasure behind and stow away on the long ocean voyage to London in search of a different future.

And what a future it is in two-time Newbery-winning Richard Peck's newest novel for middle readers, Secrets at Sea (Dial, 2011).

Forsaking his usual boyish protagonists, Peck does not forsake his characteristic wry wit and eye for social absurdities in this sea adventure that combines harrowing escapes from the ship's one-eyed cat, storms at sea that nearly toss Helena into the drink, rubbing shoulders with both British human and mouse aristocracy. In a bit of matchmaking that would do the Bronte sisters proud, both the Cranstons' old maid daughter and her charming younger sibling and the mice sisters find their own fortune and heart's desire in shipboard romances. and even the wayward Lamont finds a respectable vocation at sea before their luxury liner docks. The brave Helena has embraced the risk and found a future for them all that she could never have imagined. As she wisely reflects,

"You can't go back, not in this life. You have to go forward."

Trying a bit of a new twist himself, Peck and his Victorian rodent tale take their place among the literary mouse aristocracy, alongside Kate DiCamillo's Newbery-winning The Tale of Despereaux, George Selden's classic Newbery book, The Cricket in Times Square (Chester Cricket and His Friends), and Newbery winner Lois Lowry's recent and delightful Bless This Mouse. (see my review here. ) Readers will be glad they set sail with Richard Peck, who is at the top of his witty adventurous tale-telling game here in Secrets at Sea.

Scat, You Cat! Halloween Mice by Bethany Roberts

HALLOWEEN MICE SKITTER THROUGH THE CORNFIELD.

GHOSTS! WITCHES!
WHISK, WHISK!

A cheery band of young mice set forth on Halloween night, costumed and masked, and toting a large flashlight, on a nighttime sortie. They tiptoe cross the log over the creek and dash through a meadow where bats fly before the harvest moon and where, they fear, ghosts and witches may fly, too. Then they scamper into their destination, a pumpkin patch where they get ready to party down.

But as the mice boogie in wild abandon in the moonlight, one of their number freezes in fear.

RUSTLE, RUSTLE,
SWISH, SWISH!

Nothing can crash a party and kill a rodent party mood like a cat, and a golden-eyed tiger tom is creeping up. It's too late to run! What do they do!

Snatching up a mouse's witch mask and focusing that flashlight just right, their leader projects a terrifying witch figure which quickly persuades the predator to prowl elsewhere.

CAT IS GONE.
SING, SWING!

And the Halloween celebration goes on way past bedtime in this revised and updated board book version of Bethany Roberts' Halloween Mice! board book (Houghton Mifflin, 2011). A sparkly cover title and veteran artist Doug Cushman's playful and jolly illustrations dress up this popular holiday tale in a brand-new costume for this Halloween.

All Creatures Gray and Small: Bless This Mouse by Lois Lowry

Hildegarde signed a loud, squeaking, outraged sort of sigh, when she was informed that a new litter of mouselets had been born in the sexton's closet. Such bad timing! Such bad placement!

It wasn't simply a problem of placement and visibility. Those things were important, of course, because it was vital that the mouse population remain unseen, and now that she and Millicent had succeeded in moving the mouselets, Hildegarde gave a relieved sigh. Now, at least, the sexton would not open the closet door, gasp, and rush to a telephone to arrange for another Great X.

But it was the timing, too. Late September. They were approaching such a dangerous moment.

Mouse Mistress Hildegarde is a feisty, efficient female manager, but her new job shepherding the 219 mice of St. Bartholomew's is not an easy one. It is imperative that the numbers of mice inside the old walls of the church remain unseen and unknown. The sexton and Father Murphy are tolerant of the evidence of a single church mouse once in a while, even though the Altar Guild ladies are horrified at the sight of even one, but Hildegarde is a mature mouse, one who remembers the population decimation during previous exterminations, the deadly Great X, and she knows that if several mice are seen at once, even the genial priest will be forced to telephone for Pest-B-Gone.

And to add to her worries, she has the up-coming Blessing of the Animals on October 4, which means that if it rains, the church will be filled with pets, particularly dangerous cats. Hildegarde is old enough to remember other rainy Blessing Sundays when some of her mouse mates died a fearful death in the clutches of those cats. Hildegarde knows, too, that her political rival, Lucretia, has her own faction and is ready to pounce upon any failure of leadership on her part. Even her loyal lieutenants, the admiring but garrulous Roderick and old Ignatius, former library mouse who knows almost everything and is only too happy to expound on what he knows endlessly, take a bit of management to keep them on task. And then there are those over-fertile mouse mothers, Millicent and Vivian, whose rambunctious youngsters, Hildegarde fears, are bound to be seen by the ladies sooner or later.

And then it happens. Vivian's heedless adolescent mouselings--all of them--are spotted cavorting in the nave, and despite Hildegarde's best efforts, Father Murphy makes that dreaded call. Pest-B-Gone is on the way. It's time for the church mice to activate their own Great X-- an exodus to the church cemetery nearby. But then her scouts catch a glimpse of the exterminator's invoice, and they learn that, instead of the simple (and tasty) cheese-baited traps of the past, Pest-B-Gone is now using the ultimate cruel weapon of mouse mass destruction, glue traps--little deliciously-scented cards which adhere at the slightest touch of a mouse foot or even a whisker. Hildegarde has to come up with an effective counter attack to disable this horrible weapon and allow her troupe to return inside to their cozy steam-heated walls and bounteous cookie crumbs before winter comes.

Two-time Newbery winner Lois Lowry's forthcoming Bless This Mouse (Houghton Mifflin, 2011) is a captivating mouse tale, one with charming and witty characterizations, an engaging setting in the old stone church, and a page-turning adventure story with a wise mouse CEO who knows how to put the talents of her associates to best use. Even the bumbling Roderick comes through with a plan to disarm the deadly traps and the jealous Lucretia barely misses making the ultimate sacrifice for the good of all. It's a sweet and satisfying story, ably abetted by Caldecott artist Eric Rohmann's cozy renderings of the mice of St. Barthomew's in all their whiskered charm. A fine short novel for independent readers and a wonderful readaloud story for younger children.

Lois Lowry again proves herself the go-to gal in children's lit. As Publishers Weekly puts it, "Lowry creates a cozy church environment of lenient sextons, disheveled organists, and skittish Altar Guild ladies, from a mouse's point-of-view. Fun and lighthearted."

"A Cautionary Tale:" Once Upon a Twice by Denise Doyen

Once upon a twice,
In the middle of the nice,
The moon was on the rise,
and Mice were scoutaprowl.

They runtunnel through the riddle--
Secret ruts laid in betwiddle.
But one mousling jams the middle
Whilst he goofiddles, by the hole.

In the midst of a moonlit midnight, shepherded by eldermice, a troop sets forth to forage in the inky rice paddies of a southern night. Despite the greybeards' warnings not to loiter or linger outside their secret deep-worn pathways, one youngling, Jam Boy, stays and stops the line to smell the roses and sniff the scents about him.

"Do not disturb the bugs of June,"
The elder mouncelors whispercroon.

"Dangers lurk in the lettuce.
Twixt the celery, stalkers get us!
Open moonlight is a menace."

But despite warnings, this "riskrascal" falls behind and, once alone, yields to the lure of tempting tastes and adventures just ahead in the blue-purple dark. Beside a pond he stops, bedazzled by the jeweled beetles' wings and diamond dewdrops, as unseen "half-submerged, a slender queen/esses 'cross the pond unseen." The snake's attack comes swiftly and with a "squeak-eek! and a splash, Jam and the snake vanish below the water.

Alas! Silence descends like mud a-deep
On the creatures round the beach.

"Mouse years" pass, and then we see Jam, "wiser, whiskers now grown long" a fortunate survivor who now warns the young mouselings about him:

"When the moon is full awake,
she's the ally of the snake.
You wanderyonder by the lake?
Make no mistake...you're in a jam!
The world afield is dangerouse,
Foraging is--for a mouse--
A nightly duel and joust.
The House of Mice has many mourned.
Be forewarned!"

Breathtakingly detailed illustrations, in Barry Moser's rich deep blue, black, and ochre palette, and poetic language, sparked with evocative, playful neologisms, from author Denise Doyen make their Once Upon a Twice (Picture Book) (Random House, 2009), a simple prodigal mouse tale, into an enthralling picture book experience. As Kirkus Review states, "This slight cautionary tale is undeniably arrayed in a gorgeous brocade, woven of fresh, inventive wordplay and masterful illustrations."

Watch for this one at winter award time.

Near Cat-astrophe: Boo to You! by Lois Ehlert

That scary cat's back.
Boy, what a bummer!
See, that puss could spoil our summer!
A raccoon or a squirrel might bite a veggie.
But a cat loves meat,
And that makes us edgy!

We're having a harvest party tonight.
Guess who's the creep we didn't invite?

It's a vegetation celebration for the mice. The crops are coming in--Indian corn is ripe, there are sunflower and pumpkin seeds aplenty, nuts and wheat berries abound, and the mice would like to celebrate their bounty. But there's one carnivore that they abhor--the black cat whose skulking presence overhangs their festivities.

Just as we're about to dine,
That cat peeks out from behind a vine.

But we know exactly what to do.
We'll scare that scary cat...

BOO TO YOU!

And from their produce plenitude, the clever mice construct a monster terrifying enough to rout the cat, and the mice proceed with their celebration, safe to eat and not be eaten.

Lois Ehlert's amazing collage illustrations have delighted youngsters for years, and her just published Boo to You! (Beech Lane Books 2009) certainly keeps up the tradition. Her playful mice are constructed from rough-edged torn artisan paper, with twine limbs, tiny tomatoes for eyes, and seed pods for tails, and they frolic amid a whirlwind end-of-summer scene abounding with seeds, nuts, horse chestnuts, seed pods, berries, and pine cones, all held together by a swirling ribbon of brown craft paper uniting the scene. Minor characters such as birds are formed from colorful ornamental gourds and turban squash, and the cat himself is a bushy-tailed beast with preposterous pumpkin seed teeth. It's a festival for the eyes with a three-dimensional look that begs to be touched.

Backmatter includes Pumpkin Talk, with photos of children costumed as pumpkins and cats and many varied Jack-o'-lanterns, and Harvest Colors, a double-page spread which features all the autumnal bounty used in the collages which kids will love to seek out in the illustrations.

Boo to You! joins Ehlert's wonderful Leaf Man (Ala Notable Children's Books. Younger Readers (Awards)) and Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf (reviewed here), all three playful yet reverent salutes to the turning of the seasons.

School Days!: Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton

It was early in the morning and Splat the cat was wide awake.

Today was his first day at Cat School.

Who hasn't experienced those early morning, first-day-of-school jitters. Kindergarten kids have them. Ninth graders have them. College freshmen have them. Believe me, teachers have them in spades!

And, if we are to believe Rob Scotton's brand-new and timely picture book, Splat the Cat, cats have them, too.

Splat's eyes pop wide open even before it's time to get up for his first day of school. He tries everything to postpone the big day.

"I don't have any clean socks, Mom!" he yells. "Maybe I should go to school tomorrow."

"You don't wear socks," says his mom.

Mom gets him through a plea of a bad fur day with a bit of judicious combing and a jar of fur gloop. "Purr-fect," she quips.

"I'm going to need a friend," Splat mutters as he packs his snacks, plopping his pet mouse Seymour inside his new red lunchbox for backup.

At school the empathetic Mrs. Wimpydimple starts right out to build the new students' self esteem.

"All cats are amazing. Cats climb trees, drink milk, and chase mice."

"Why do we chase mice?" asks Splat.

"It's what we do," replies Mrs. Wimpydimple.

"Why? Why? Why?" repeats Splat.

"Because." says Mrs. Wimpydimple. "Time for lunch."

This diversion only works briefly. When Splat opens his lunchbox and Seymour pops out in the middle of the cats--well, they do what they've learned cats do--chase poor Seymour! But when Seymour jumps behind a thick glass jar, his magnified leer terrifies the inexperienced mousers and puts an end to the mouse hunt. Then, when the door to the milk cupboard is stuck and there's no milk for the lunch break, Seymour proves that mice are also amazing--especially in squeezing into tight places to open doors from the inside! It's milk all around for the ex-mouse chasers in Splat's class.

Splat and Seymour find that they have a lot of new friends, and the second day of school is already looking a whole lot better.

Rob Scotton's edgy illustrations of Splat the quirky cat are a real hoot, and his positive message about surviving the first day of school should help ease that first-day anxiety.