Module 2: Mouse Soup

Book Summary:

Mouse Soup, by Arnold Lobel, is a story about a mouse who gets captured by a weasel. The weasel plans to use the mouse for soup, but Mouse distracts the weasel by telling him stories.

APA Reference:

Lobel, A. (1977). Mouse Soup. New York: Harper & Row.

Impressions:

I have avoided Mouse Soup the entire six years of my teaching career. A colleague of mine associated it with a bad experience during her first year of teaching where the entire second grade was forced to read Mouse Soup, leaving students and teachers with no free choice to select their own books or design their own reading lessons. So, even though this book was floating around my classroom library every year and circulating amongst my students, I never gave it a chance until now.

Verdict: I really liked it!

It’s not that my colleague thought it was a bad book. In her brilliance she knew that a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching reading does not work. While Mouse Soup was appropriate for some second-graders, it was too high-level or too low for others.

Fast-forward many years to now, when I finally pick up Mouse Soup for a grad school assignment. In my dismissiveness of the book, I didn’t realize it was written by Arnold Lobel, the creator of the Frog and Toad series, some of my absolute favorite books! On their own, I love them, but as a teacher I had great success with Frog and Toad. They are great books for the struggling readers who want to be seen with chapter books, like the “smart kids,” and the fact that it’s a little series gets them to at least read three books. That’s a huge victory in some cases!

So, of course I loved reading Mouse Soup. The main thing I love, as with Frog and Toad, are the illustrations. They are simple, not vibrantly colored, but they are sweet and emotive. This is a good example of a book where the illustrations do some of the work of telling the story.

I also really enjoy Lobel’s writing style. Mouse Soup is a minimalistic story, kind of like how a mouse is a mini animal, but the story is also silly and provides opportunities for making simple inferences, with the aid of the illustrations.

On the cuteness scale, it ranks high, both in story and illustrations. It’s just so cute. Cute is important! 

Professional Review:

Note: This is not a review of the 1st edition of the book, published in 1977. It is possible that it is a review of the 1992 video by Churchill Entertainment, Mouse Soup. 

Tiffany Torbeck (Children's Literature)

A weasel gets much more than he bargained for when he captures a clever little mouse and tries to make mouse soup. The mouse explains to the weasel that mouse soup is better with stories and proceeds to tell four: Bee and the Mud, Two Large Stones, The Crickets, and The Thorn Bush. Each story is funny and entertaining on its own, but when the mouse tells the weasel that what he needs are the title ingredients, the reader will know that the weasel will get just what he deserves. The read along is narrated by Lobel himself with a lovely introduction and concluding statements. The cadence is perfect for new readers and most readers will be able to keep up just fine. Background music and sound effects fit perfectly with the text and really do add something to The Crickets story, since readers can experience just how annoying ten crickets can be. This is a wonderful set for libraries and classrooms. 2008, HarperFestival/HarperCollins, $9.99. Ages 5 to 8.

(PUBLISHER: HarperCollins (New York:), PUBLISHED: [2008] c1977.(HarperCollins (New York:), PUBLISHED: [2008] c1977.))

Torbeck, T. (2008). [Review of the book Mouse Soup, by A. Lobel]. Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database. Retrieved from http://www.clcd.com/#/bookdetail/1/1/PjooKnpPkoHOlqnn/bdrtop

Library Uses:

I would use this book in my school library much as I did when I was a teacher, with reluctant/struggling readers. I would use it to introduce reluctant/struggling readers to easy chapter books and easy books that they wouldn’t consider “baby books.” It could also be used like that in the public library. Maybe there could be a read aloud type of reoccurring activity for younger elementary kids, but not the Storytime ages of birth through five.