Pizza Mouse

Reviewed by: Sheila Dube - Springvale Public Library, Springvale, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: November 8, 2017

Review

This is an easy reader in the larger picture book format. The mouse narrator explains that no one likes mice, but so what? He lives in the city and looks for food. When he finds a whole piece of pizza, he decides it's time to take it back home. Going home means negotiating the subway and slipping into the hole in the subway wall that has little mice waiting for daddy. The text consists of one or two simple sentences per 2 page layout. The large pencil and digitalized illustrations with the many details a city backdrop would provide overwhelms the small amount of text that a new reader must decode. At times it has a find-and-seek quality for both the mouse in the illustration and the text. Although Garland provides a mouse's perspective on human feet, the styling of the feet seems a bit odd especially when the mouse is trapped by feet while holding a piece of pizza. The layout lends itself more to a wordless picture book than to one for new readers.

Overall Book Score: fair