Town Mouse, Country Mouse

by Jan Brett

Overview

Mice overflowing with personality and richly detailed settings make this a favorite edition of the classic tale.

Jan Brett introduces two engaging mouse couples eager to get away from their everyday lives. But when they agree to swap homes, they are plunged into unexpected adventures at every turn.

In a story filled with suspense and humor, lush green country scenes alternate with the elegant details of a fine Victorian townhouse, making this a breathtakingly beautiful picture book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399226229
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	08/31/1994
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	10.63(w) x 8.75(h) x 0.35(d)
Lexile:	AD630L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

With over thirty four million books in print, Jan Brett is one of the nation's foremost author illustrators of children's books. Jan lives in a seacoast town in Massachusetts, close to where she grew up. During the summer her family moves to a home in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts.

As a child, Jan Brett decided to be an illustrator and spent many hours reading and drawing. She says, "I remember the special quiet of rainy days when I felt that I could enter the pages of my beautiful picture books. Now I try to recreate that feeling of believing that the imaginary place I'm drawing really exists. The detail in my work helps to convince me, and I hope others as well, that such places might be real."

As a student at the Boston Museum School, she spent hours in the Museum of Fine Arts. "It was overwhelming to see the room-size landscapes and towering stone sculptures, and then moments later to refocus on delicately embroidered kimonos and ancient porcelain," she says. "I'm delighted and surprised when fragments of these beautiful images come back to me in my painting."

Travel is also a constant inspiration. Together with her husband, Joe Hearne, who is a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Jan visits many different countries where she researches the architecture and costumes that appear in her work. "From cave paintings to Norwegian sleighs, to Japanese gardens, I study the traditions of the many countries I visit and use them as a starting point for my children's books."

Editorial Reviews

An entertaining romp providing much to savor.

Horn Book

A truly delightful book.

Children's Book Review Schedule

As might be expected, there's a lot for children to enjoy in Brett's latest offering. Both text and art reach well beyond the familiar story to achieve a humorous twist. The artwork is gorgeous. Each double-page spread, crammed with fascinating, intricate decorative flourishes, contains several parts: the cleverly and appropriately bordered central illustration depicting the text, and the decorative panels, one on each side of the main picture, that elaborate on or add new bits of information to the alternating main stories about two pairs of married mice. These side panels, which don't present a sequential story in the manner of some of Brett's picture books, focus largely on the misadventures of a townwise cat and a countrywise owl, each of whom would like nothing better than mice for dinner. The pictorial high jinks take an especially comedic turn at the end when the owl and the cat decide it's their turn to change places. With animal characters so realistic they look as though they might leap from the pages (fetching clothing notwithstanding), this playful retelling is certain to become a favorite.

Stephanie Zvirin