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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
Really cute story :) Some parts felt kinda long and dragged out , but overall it was pretty good!
Spoiler
(there were a lot of times when they were just standing in the same place with nothing happening so thats what I mean)
The middle grade novel equivalent of Neutral Milk Hotel. So weird, heartbreaking and tender in a way that feels like childhood from the inside.
I read this aloud to my 9 year old son. I thought at first he really wouldn't like it, and I wasn't at all convinced myself, but we got into the story and ended up enjoying it. Some of it, okay a lot of it, was over his (and my) head but he liked the 'if times what equals how' bits and was intrigued by Manny Rat. Not always an easy read, but rewarding.
I listened to this audio book (with narrator William Dufris) and it was so amazing! The narrator is phenomenal and the story was incredibly creative and heartwarming. I highly recommend it - especially the audio book.
I enjoyed the philosophy and sophisticated language in the story. However, as an adult I may have preferred reading of this not through the double anthropomorphism of wind-up toys. Is that philosophy and sophisticated language beyond the comprehension of the target reader, presumably the older primary school child judging by the format of the book? And indeed is that child still interested in anthropomorphic stories? There are many fine qualities in the writing and I suspect that adult admiring it have made the story a classic.
Don't be misled by this book's cover, with its gentle picture of a windup toy mouse
hand in hand with his small son. The Mouse and His Child is and isn't a children's book but it is not recommended for the
soft hearted of any age.
The title characters, a mouse and his child, are toys who seem quite astonished to find themselves in the world,
moving from a toyshop to display items under a Christmas tree to, quite suddenly, the dump. Despite his father's doubts,
despite the adversity of the world including the wicked Manny Rat, the child holds onto and attempts to realize his dream of
finding and making his toyshop companions, a windup elephant and a windup seal, his mother and sister, and finding
and making the toyshop's dolls' house his family home.
I'm making it sound much more treacly than it is, however. There is hope and redemption in this story, but there is
also cruelty and death. Like most good children's stories, it can be read simply as a wonderful adventure if you are ten or
as a sophisticated fantasy with clever dialogue and deep meaning if you are twenty.
I liked it so much that I went right back and read it again when I finished. I would caution against reading by or
with the most sensitive of readers.
hand in hand with his small son. The Mouse and His Child is and isn't a children's book but it is not recommended for the
soft hearted of any age.
The title characters, a mouse and his child, are toys who seem quite astonished to find themselves in the world,
moving from a toyshop to display items under a Christmas tree to, quite suddenly, the dump. Despite his father's doubts,
despite the adversity of the world including the wicked Manny Rat, the child holds onto and attempts to realize his dream of
finding and making his toyshop companions, a windup elephant and a windup seal, his mother and sister, and finding
and making the toyshop's dolls' house his family home.
I'm making it sound much more treacly than it is, however. There is hope and redemption in this story, but there is
also cruelty and death. Like most good children's stories, it can be read simply as a wonderful adventure if you are ten or
as a sophisticated fantasy with clever dialogue and deep meaning if you are twenty.
I liked it so much that I went right back and read it again when I finished. I would caution against reading by or
with the most sensitive of readers.
I really liked this! It's the story of how a toy mouse and his (attached) child make friends, discover the meaning to infinity, achieve Self-Winding, obtain their very own territory, and have a real family.
I can't explain this properly, but while the whole story was happy and adventurous in a way only children's books can be, it was also kind of poignant. One thing I think contributed to this tone is how the mouse's (and child's) fur eventually came off and their clothing was torn and tattered and their bare tin could be seen underneath. They were so discarded and unwanted and chased. Instead of being depressing as many similarly-toned adult fiction books are, the tone simply lent an air of gravity and, well, poignancy to the story.
It's not just a children's book. It touches on many themes like having a territory (or a place to call home. see quote below!). The tramp and his dog Bonzo, along with the tin can with Bonzo's infinity picture, also provide a larger perspective away from the lives of the tin toys and friends.
Here are some quotes!
'A territory is your place,' said the drummer boy. 'It's where everything smells right. It's where you know the runways and the hideouts, night or day. It's what you fought for, or what your father fought for, and you feel all safe and strong there. It's the place where, when you fight, you win.'
'That's your territory,' said the fifer. 'Somebody else's territory is something else again. That's where you feel sick and scared and want to run away, and that's where the other side mostly wins.'
'Winding and unwinding,' intoned the frog, 'whole or broken, bright or rusty, until the end of your tin. I now pronounce you mouse and wife.'
I can't explain this properly, but while the whole story was happy and adventurous in a way only children's books can be, it was also kind of poignant. One thing I think contributed to this tone is how the mouse's (and child's) fur eventually came off and their clothing was torn and tattered and their bare tin could be seen underneath. They were so discarded and unwanted and chased. Instead of being depressing as many similarly-toned adult fiction books are, the tone simply lent an air of gravity and, well, poignancy to the story.
It's not just a children's book. It touches on many themes like having a territory (or a place to call home. see quote below!). The tramp and his dog Bonzo, along with the tin can with Bonzo's infinity picture, also provide a larger perspective away from the lives of the tin toys and friends.
Here are some quotes!
'A territory is your place,' said the drummer boy. 'It's where everything smells right. It's where you know the runways and the hideouts, night or day. It's what you fought for, or what your father fought for, and you feel all safe and strong there. It's the place where, when you fight, you win.'
'That's your territory,' said the fifer. 'Somebody else's territory is something else again. That's where you feel sick and scared and want to run away, and that's where the other side mostly wins.'
'Winding and unwinding,' intoned the frog, 'whole or broken, bright or rusty, until the end of your tin. I now pronounce you mouse and wife.'
This is my new favorite book of all time. It reads as an adventure story - a wind-up toy (a father and son mouse) are purchased from a toy store, and journey through families and Christmases, until they are finally old and broken and end up in a dump where an enterprising but evil rat rebuilds wind-up toys as his personal army of laborers. The son longs for home, for a mother, for a sense of belonging somewhere (his 'territory') and that is his primary directive throughout the story - to achieve that. The father, on the other hand, is cynical and loses hope again and again. It is the son's optimism that keeps them going. As a unit, they represent the dual motivations in any one human being. The nature of their being - being wind-up toys reliant on others to wind them up to make them go, is an obvious allegory to mankind's reliance on fate, economies, war, etc to make any progress in life. It is a statement to our vulnerabilities, or utter helplessness and lack of any real control of our lives. Indeed, each bit of their journey is instigated by an outside force rather than by their own doing. It is only their hope that keeps them alive as they wait for the next thing to occur. This book came into my life at an interesting time - in the midst of Trump and Brexit - when I think most of us feel like wind-up toys, victims to forces greater than ourselves and out of our control. The story does end on a high note, the son's hope is rewarded, friends are reunited and a home/territory is indeed established. As such, the story leaves one with a sense of positive hope alongside an intense awareness of our own fragility.
As strange and disturbing as one expects from the pen of Hoban. This is closer to [b:Riddley Walker, Expanded Edition|776573|Riddley Walker, Expanded Edition|Russell Hoban|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223635898s/776573.jpg|762606] than to Frances, for certain. It's deeply symbolic and I think that it would reward any number of readings. There's just so much going on beneath the surface, and listening to it was not the proper choice for a first go-round, as my mind sometimes wandered and I was constantly rewinding. Or whatever it's called now, backtracking? I don't know that I've got the fortitude to read it again, however, no matter how rewarding it would be.
The characters are unbelievably complex, the situations thorny and portentous, the plot sometimes hard to winkle out of the beautiful prose. I loved the snapping turtle with all my heart and found the Child realistically whiny on occasion.
It's a book I'll be thinking about for a long time.
The characters are unbelievably complex, the situations thorny and portentous, the plot sometimes hard to winkle out of the beautiful prose. I loved the snapping turtle with all my heart and found the Child realistically whiny on occasion.
It's a book I'll be thinking about for a long time.