The Lion and the Mouse

Pinkney, Jerry. 2009. The Lion & the Mouse. New York: Little, Brown and Co. Books for Young Readers. ISBN-978-0316013567

Plot Summary:

Winner of the 2010 Caldecott Medal, The Lion and the Mouse is a mostly wordless retelling of Aesop's fable by the same name. In this fable, a mouse comes upon a lion and disturbs him. The lion catches the mouse and instead of eating the mouse, the lion makes the decision to let the mouse go, and the mouse scurries home. In the meantime, trappers set a rope net trap that the lion accidentally becomes caught in as the lion roams about the desert. The mouse overhears the lion's roars of frustration and fear and finds the lion tangled in the trapper's trap. Under the lion's watchful eye, the mouse climbs the trap and gnaws at the rope, eventually weakening the rope enough that the trap breaks and the mouse sets the lion free. The lion and the mouse exchange a look, and the book ends with the moues taking a piece of the rope trap back to her nest.

Critical Analysis:

Aesop's The Lion and the Mouse fable teaches a story that values the weak. The mouse is obviously inferior to the lion, but the mouse triumphs over the lion by choosing to save the lion's life because the lion showed mercy to the mouse.

Pinkney's retelling of Aesop's fable enables the reader to look at this classic moral story in a different way because of the lack of words. The only words used in the story are onomatopoeia from the animals and the sound of the jeep in the desert. Readers are required to use inference skills in order to make assumptions as to the motivations of the lion and the mouse. Through our studies of science, we know that lions are predators at the top of the food chain and mice are an appetizer for the king of the jungle. While children may not know traditional science, children do know from cartoons and other stories that lions can be vicious and brutal. The logical assumption to make, for anyone, is that the lion will kill the mouse. Pinkney's story challenges that assumption because readers must use the pictures and what they perceive from those pictures to tell the story.

Throughout the book, the illustration are beautiful and extremely detailed line drawings and what appear to be watercolors. Here the lack of text in the fable allow the reader to see the lion more kindly because of the illustrations. In other retellings of this fable, the lion is arrogant, but the illustrations in this retelling do not support that characteristic. Instead, the drawings and paintings show the lion's majesty and ferocity. Before the lion is caught in the trapper's net, the lion stands in the desert, surrounded by other animals who watch him warily, and the lion's majesty is emphasized through the watercolor painting. The double layout where the lion holds the mouse in his paws is breathtakingly beautiful, and the reader cannot help but look at the details of the lion's face as he stares at the prey in his hands. There is deadly beauty in the sharpness of the lion's teeth, but there is also a sense of compassion in the lion's eyes as he looks at the mouse that cowers in his paws. From this illustration, the reader is led to believe the lion is not the deadly beast he is, and the illustration of the lion on the next page reinforces that assumption. The lion releases the mouse, and the detailed drawing of the lion's face shows the lion's curiosity with a hint of a grin in the lion's eyes and on his mouth. There is no arrogance or egotism in the lion's expression anywhere in Pinkney's illustrations.

Review Excerpts:
"This story starts on the cover with the glorious, golden countenance of a lion. No text is necessary to communicate the title: the direction of the beast's gaze and the conflicted expression on his tightly cropped face compel readers to turn the book over, where a mouse, almost filling the vertical space, glances back. The endpapers and artist's note place these creatures among the animal families of the African Serengeti. Each spread contributes something new in this nearly wordless narrative, including the title opening, on which the watchful rodent pauses, resting in one of the large footprints that marches across the gutter. In some scenes, Pinkney's luminous art, rendered in watercolor and colored pencil, suggests a natural harmony, as when the cool blues of the sky are mirrored in the rocks and acacia tree. In other compositions, a cream-colored background focuses attention on the exquisitely detailed and nuanced forms of the two main characters..." Wendy Lukehart, School Library Journal, Washington DC Public Library END

"Here, Pinkney is audacious, courageous, or simply imaginative enough to retell the classic Aesop fable without text. Very few natural sound effects like the hoot of an owl, the scratching of the mouse's teeth as it chews the ropes and the "RRRRRROAARRRR" of the captured lion are all that are necessary. His animated renderings of the African animals along with the two hunters draw us immediately into the familiar story...The illustrations range from double-page spreads to framed or unframed images on single pages. They vary in size but not intensity. The close-up of the lion in the trap is almost a psychological study. As a master of the media, Pinkney handles pencil and transparent watercolors with added colored pencils to create naturalistic characters while avoiding the strictures of photorealism. This is a stunning tour de force." Children's Literature Review

Awards:
2010 Caldecott Medal winner
2010 Horn Book Awards Honor Book Boston Globe
2010 Best Illustrated Books The New York Times
2010 Book of the Year Winner, New Picture Book The Lion and the Mouse, Indies Choice

Connections:

The Lion and the Mouse lends itself to several activities for young children.

In a classroom setting, a teacher could utilize a K-W-L chart to help young readers hone their knowledge of lions and mice, but it would also have them begin to make inferences about the story just based on what they see in the illustration on the book's cover (which is gorgeous).

Another activity children could complete with this fable is a retelling of the moral by using other animal pairs that are opposites like the lion and the mouse. Once children choose an animal pair, they could mimic Pinkney's wordless style and retell the fable through pictures of their own using their chosen animal pairs.

After reading and discussing The Lion and the Mouse, children might want to explore some of Aesop's other fables. For young children, The Tortoise and the Hare or The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse are other fables by Aesop they could easily identify with and would enjoy.