Take a photo of a barcode or cover
kerry_handscomb 's review for:
The Mouse and His Child
by Russell Hoban
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The Mouse and His Child by Russel Hoban was first published in 1967 with illustrations by Hoban's wife, Lillian. It's worth getting a copy with the original artwork, which is delightful.
The Mouse and His Child is a book that hit me with a deep sense of pathos when I first read it as a child. It is ostensibly a children's book, with talking animals and talking clockwork toys, but at least the first half of the book is unflinchingly grim. The mouse and his child of the title are a clockwork toy, dancing in the window of a toy store at the start of the book. Accompanying these two in the store window are a clockwork elephant, a clockwork seal, and a doll's house. Through all their vicissitudes, the mouse and his child are forever yearning for a return to their initial idyllic existence in the toy store, where together with the elephant as mother to the mouse child and seal as his sister, they would constitute a perfect "family."
Bought as a Christmas trinket, the mouse and his child are subsequently broken by a cat when the mouse child cries for his lost family, thereby breaking one of the cardinal laws of the clockwork-toy universe. A tramp rescues them from the garbage and repairs them somewhat, and sets them off into the world with the advice, "Be tramps!" There follows a series of unrelentingly harsh incidents involving the mouse and his child, in the filth of the town dump, in a swamp, in a pond, and so on. Frequently, they are present at scenes of violence, death, and destruction. The mouse and his child are broken apart, rusted, and degraded.
The boss of the dump, Manny Rat, becomes a sworn enemy of the mouse and his child when they escape from servitude in a gang of clockwork-toy slaves under the rats. Along the way, however, the mouse and his child do make friends: the philosopher musk rat, Uncle Frog, Uncle Kingfisher, Uncle Bittern, and so on. The second half of the book is much less grim, and The Mouse and His Child ends as a story of success and redemption: their long-held dreams finally come true with the help of their friends. Even the evil Manny Rat is redeemed.
Reading this book again as an adult, I still appreciated its pathos, though it didn't affect me as deeply as it did as a child. Yes, the world can be an ugly, dirty vicious place—but, still, there are elements of love and hope and joy, and the good will eventually triumph, as it does in The Mouse and His Child. Nevertheless, of all the children's books I read as a child and again as an adult, The Mouse and His Child is my favourite. There's something magical about this story, even now. Hoban's writing is lovely, and his wife's illustrations are the perfect accompaniment. In my view, The Mouse and His Child is a deep, significant book, for adults as well as children.
The Mouse and His Child is a book that hit me with a deep sense of pathos when I first read it as a child. It is ostensibly a children's book, with talking animals and talking clockwork toys, but at least the first half of the book is unflinchingly grim. The mouse and his child of the title are a clockwork toy, dancing in the window of a toy store at the start of the book. Accompanying these two in the store window are a clockwork elephant, a clockwork seal, and a doll's house. Through all their vicissitudes, the mouse and his child are forever yearning for a return to their initial idyllic existence in the toy store, where together with the elephant as mother to the mouse child and seal as his sister, they would constitute a perfect "family."
Bought as a Christmas trinket, the mouse and his child are subsequently broken by a cat when the mouse child cries for his lost family, thereby breaking one of the cardinal laws of the clockwork-toy universe. A tramp rescues them from the garbage and repairs them somewhat, and sets them off into the world with the advice, "Be tramps!" There follows a series of unrelentingly harsh incidents involving the mouse and his child, in the filth of the town dump, in a swamp, in a pond, and so on. Frequently, they are present at scenes of violence, death, and destruction. The mouse and his child are broken apart, rusted, and degraded.
The boss of the dump, Manny Rat, becomes a sworn enemy of the mouse and his child when they escape from servitude in a gang of clockwork-toy slaves under the rats. Along the way, however, the mouse and his child do make friends: the philosopher musk rat, Uncle Frog, Uncle Kingfisher, Uncle Bittern, and so on. The second half of the book is much less grim, and The Mouse and His Child ends as a story of success and redemption: their long-held dreams finally come true with the help of their friends. Even the evil Manny Rat is redeemed.
Reading this book again as an adult, I still appreciated its pathos, though it didn't affect me as deeply as it did as a child. Yes, the world can be an ugly, dirty vicious place—but, still, there are elements of love and hope and joy, and the good will eventually triumph, as it does in The Mouse and His Child. Nevertheless, of all the children's books I read as a child and again as an adult, The Mouse and His Child is my favourite. There's something magical about this story, even now. Hoban's writing is lovely, and his wife's illustrations are the perfect accompaniment. In my view, The Mouse and His Child is a deep, significant book, for adults as well as children.