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ashlylynne 's review for:
Stuart Little
by E.B. White
1/5 Stars
This is a book that I didn't read as a child, but it's been on my list ever since I realized my mistake. It's weird that this book could be so bad, but I liked White's other book Charlotte's Web so much. I read it multiple times as a child. Maybe it's time to revisit that one and find out if it really is as good as I remember, since I think it's important that children's books are not just entertaining to the children but also to the adults reading them. That gives books merit. There are standards I hold children's books to (probably a silly notion), but this book did not live up to those standards. It's safe to say this book will not be gracing the shelves of my library.
Let's start with the first and main concept of suspension of disbelief Mr. White asks us to accept. Stuart Little is a mouse of only about 2 inches. Now, this might have been worked into the story in some way that I could at least somewhat believe, or allow myself to believe, but he is introduced into the family by the mother giving birth to a mouse and no one being particularly perturbed by that, not even the doctors. If a woman popped out a mouse I think someone would at least say something about the matter. But no one, not one person says anything about a woman giving birth to a mouse and isn't concerned that it's her child. It's even weirder and more noticeable since the family's first son is a completely normal boy, no mouse attributes at all. Like where did this mouse child even come from? Wait, scratch that. I don't want to know.
So, we have a story that at least has potential to produce something interesting, but let's talk about plot development. Don't worry, I'll keep this short. There is none. There is no plausible plot to this story that I could come up with. Okay, yes, Stuart is born, he gets himself into some potentially interesting (but ultimately failed in execution) shenanigans, and he becomes friends with a hurt bird that the family takes in. Basic plot with no interesting developments until the bird flies away because the Little's cat is going to have his friend eat the poor bird. So, the bird, Margalo, decides to fly away and then Stuart decides to run away to find her. This does sound like it could be going somewhere, even minus some good development along the way, but the second half and ending of the story is just as big a let down as the first.
Next we come to character development. Once again I have a short answer to give for this. Like the plot development, there is none. There is absolutely no sense of character development throughout any of this short novel. The Little parents are never described in detail and hardly even appear in the story at all (other than, you now, Mrs. Little giving birth to some weird mouse child). Then there's George, Stuart's older brother, who I couldn't even tell you anything about at all except that he gets up in the morning and does exercises, and I can only tell you this because Stuart likes to mimic him and exercise along with him. Then there's Stuart who has minimal, and I mean exceptionally minimal character development, so minimal to the point that it can barely even be called character development. Stuart is a mouse of, we don't even get a solid age, but his arrogance is large enough for him to be some billionaire businessman who wears suits, has money to spare, and is too into himself for his own good - and, believe me, that's exactly how he dresses and acts. The mouse wears a suit! Um, what?
So Stuart sets out on a quest to find Margalo, the poor bird who has run away because of the cat being so mean - but the cat might be the only character who got some decent character development in the entire book, and it only told me that the cat's an asshole. Now, how this happens is Stuart decides he's going to run away, as recently stated. He packs some money, which is confusing in itself. He's only two inches tall; how does he even carry money!? And he somehow has enough to support himself this whole never-ending trip. So, Stuart runs away and guess what? His family doesn't even do anything. Like, their freakish mouse child ran away and they don't even care. They're probably just glad that the freaking mouse child is gone cause, I mean, he sounds more like a nuisance anyway.
Side rant: Then there's the part where Stuart meets Harriet Ames. First of all, don't even get me started on how sexist this scene is. Other than wanting to vomit, this scene was poorly written and served absolutely no purpose to the plot in any sense. There is no reason this small girl is even in this book. Plus, while Stuart's trying to impress Harriet (and, trust me, he's doing a terrible job, unless being a jerk sounds like a good way to impress a girl), and completely forgets about why he ran away in the first place: Margalo. I hope he never finds that bird. She deserves to be free of Stuart for the rest of her life. Luckily Harriet storms off completely unimpressed by Stuart (You go girl!) and doesn't have to deal with the little mouse man ever again, or so I hope.
Now, I've read that Mr. White was quite the hypochondriac and the reason for such a rushed ending was because he thought he was dying and wanted to get this book published. Knowing this, I might have excused the rushed and, quite frankly, terrible ending, but that does not excuse the rest of this book. The end just leaves the reader hanging with nothing more to go on than that Stuart kept heading North in hopes of finding Margalo. No news from the family he ran away from, no general idea of where Stuart may be heading except North, and no clue that Stuart will ever find any inkling of where Margalo might be. No, this ending is not okay. The lack of plot development continues right to the last sentence.
This book was not good. It left me with an incomplete story and an irrational anger toward both the mouse in the story and the man who created him. If you are looking for a good read to rekindling some childhood nostalgia or something to read to your children, I would not recommend this book. There are no morals here and no lessons to be learned, unless you want your child to follow in the footsteps of a jerk little mouse, which, I figured, you don't.
Review originally published on my Wordpress blog Dreaming Through Literature.
This is a book that I didn't read as a child, but it's been on my list ever since I realized my mistake. It's weird that this book could be so bad, but I liked White's other book Charlotte's Web so much. I read it multiple times as a child. Maybe it's time to revisit that one and find out if it really is as good as I remember, since I think it's important that children's books are not just entertaining to the children but also to the adults reading them. That gives books merit. There are standards I hold children's books to (probably a silly notion), but this book did not live up to those standards. It's safe to say this book will not be gracing the shelves of my library.
Let's start with the first and main concept of suspension of disbelief Mr. White asks us to accept. Stuart Little is a mouse of only about 2 inches. Now, this might have been worked into the story in some way that I could at least somewhat believe, or allow myself to believe, but he is introduced into the family by the mother giving birth to a mouse and no one being particularly perturbed by that, not even the doctors. If a woman popped out a mouse I think someone would at least say something about the matter. But no one, not one person says anything about a woman giving birth to a mouse and isn't concerned that it's her child. It's even weirder and more noticeable since the family's first son is a completely normal boy, no mouse attributes at all. Like where did this mouse child even come from? Wait, scratch that. I don't want to know.
So, we have a story that at least has potential to produce something interesting, but let's talk about plot development. Don't worry, I'll keep this short. There is none. There is no plausible plot to this story that I could come up with. Okay, yes, Stuart is born, he gets himself into some potentially interesting (but ultimately failed in execution) shenanigans, and he becomes friends with a hurt bird that the family takes in. Basic plot with no interesting developments until the bird flies away because the Little's cat is going to have his friend eat the poor bird. So, the bird, Margalo, decides to fly away and then Stuart decides to run away to find her. This does sound like it could be going somewhere, even minus some good development along the way, but the second half and ending of the story is just as big a let down as the first.
Next we come to character development. Once again I have a short answer to give for this. Like the plot development, there is none. There is absolutely no sense of character development throughout any of this short novel. The Little parents are never described in detail and hardly even appear in the story at all (other than, you now, Mrs. Little giving birth to some weird mouse child). Then there's George, Stuart's older brother, who I couldn't even tell you anything about at all except that he gets up in the morning and does exercises, and I can only tell you this because Stuart likes to mimic him and exercise along with him. Then there's Stuart who has minimal, and I mean exceptionally minimal character development, so minimal to the point that it can barely even be called character development. Stuart is a mouse of, we don't even get a solid age, but his arrogance is large enough for him to be some billionaire businessman who wears suits, has money to spare, and is too into himself for his own good - and, believe me, that's exactly how he dresses and acts. The mouse wears a suit! Um, what?
So Stuart sets out on a quest to find Margalo, the poor bird who has run away because of the cat being so mean - but the cat might be the only character who got some decent character development in the entire book, and it only told me that the cat's an asshole. Now, how this happens is Stuart decides he's going to run away, as recently stated. He packs some money, which is confusing in itself. He's only two inches tall; how does he even carry money!? And he somehow has enough to support himself this whole never-ending trip. So, Stuart runs away and guess what? His family doesn't even do anything. Like, their freakish mouse child ran away and they don't even care. They're probably just glad that the freaking mouse child is gone cause, I mean, he sounds more like a nuisance anyway.
Side rant: Then there's the part where Stuart meets Harriet Ames. First of all, don't even get me started on how sexist this scene is. Other than wanting to vomit, this scene was poorly written and served absolutely no purpose to the plot in any sense. There is no reason this small girl is even in this book. Plus, while Stuart's trying to impress Harriet (and, trust me, he's doing a terrible job, unless being a jerk sounds like a good way to impress a girl), and completely forgets about why he ran away in the first place: Margalo. I hope he never finds that bird. She deserves to be free of Stuart for the rest of her life. Luckily Harriet storms off completely unimpressed by Stuart (You go girl!) and doesn't have to deal with the little mouse man ever again, or so I hope.
Now, I've read that Mr. White was quite the hypochondriac and the reason for such a rushed ending was because he thought he was dying and wanted to get this book published. Knowing this, I might have excused the rushed and, quite frankly, terrible ending, but that does not excuse the rest of this book. The end just leaves the reader hanging with nothing more to go on than that Stuart kept heading North in hopes of finding Margalo. No news from the family he ran away from, no general idea of where Stuart may be heading except North, and no clue that Stuart will ever find any inkling of where Margalo might be. No, this ending is not okay. The lack of plot development continues right to the last sentence.
This book was not good. It left me with an incomplete story and an irrational anger toward both the mouse in the story and the man who created him. If you are looking for a good read to rekindling some childhood nostalgia or something to read to your children, I would not recommend this book. There are no morals here and no lessons to be learned, unless you want your child to follow in the footsteps of a jerk little mouse, which, I figured, you don't.
Review originally published on my Wordpress blog Dreaming Through Literature.