Mouse At Night - Hardcover

Many readers of this largely wordless book will be hooked by its opening: ``Everything might look quite normal in Miss Bumbly's house, but late at night, when the moon is full, things aren't ordinary at all. . . .'' This inspires anticipation seemingly shared by the soft-edged, green-whiskered, blue mouse peeping cautiously from its hole. Mouse emerges and punches on the TV, where he watches an aerobics class and a comedy about a cat being chased by a mouse. A cooking show leads Mouse to try his hand in the kitchen. Subsequent scenes show him stirring batter, squeezing orange juice, and even bringing flowers in from the garden to make a centerpiece. When the alarm clock rings for the lady of the house, Mouse scrambles to clean up and manages to get his own pancakes through the mousehole as the bunny-slippered foot starts down the stairs. ``Is it breakfast time already?'' Miss Bumbly asks, without questioning how it got there. Erdogan's (The Mouse's First Christmas, 1999) fuzzy-edged acrylics lend a dream-like quality to the activities, but it's not certain exactly why or how all of this is happening. Recognition of the book's objective that it invites children to create their own stories about what really goes on when the lights go off relies on the jacket statement rather than on the work itself. A trifle. (Picture book. 3-6)-- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"Everything might look quite normal in Miss Bumbly's house, but late at night, when the moon is full, things aren't ordinary at all." This almost wordless picture book features a bright blue mouse who creeps out of a hole at night to have a little fun, then delightfully surprises readers by doing a good deed. Yes, the mouse does channel surf for awhile, takes an aerobics class, and watches a cooking show. But, this mouse also makes a lovely breakfast for Miss Bumbly, picks her some flowers and arranges them beautifully, and cleans up, all before escaping into its hole with a snack, sight unseen. Erdogan's acrylic paintings use brilliant colors and are easy to see from a distance, making this a good choice for story times, but they also reveal enough detail to keep the youngest reader turning pages, absorbed in the mouse's antics. Kathy Broderick
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