Town Mouse, Country Mouse
by Jan Brett

G. P. Putnam's Sons (New York): 1994. Harcover picture book: 32 pages. ISBN-10: 0-399-22622-2 Suggested retail price: $16.95 (US) Tags: cats; cheese; Fable; Juvenile; mice; owls Tactical strength: [6/10]

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Brett tells this familiar fable with some interesting twists and exquisite illustrations. Instead of just telling the story from the perspective of just two mice, Brett expands the players to two sets of husband and wife mice couples. The additional characters give the mice someone to talk to when events occur, but Brett uses "the country mouse" and "the city mouse" as pronouns that can refer to either the male or the female mouse. Although political correctness does call for balance between the use of masculine and feminine pronouns, Brett's narrative seems to switch viewpoints unexpectedly at several points. Some minor editing could have easily overcome this problem.

The illustrations provide not only a colorful illustration of the narrative, but you also get a running side-story of a city cat and a country owl that keep trying to have the mice for dinner. In a cute surprise ending, the cat and owl meet at the end and decide they will trade residences. I appreciate Brett's art, but the pages have so much content and flashy color that my four-year-old daughter could not pick out the main components of the story from the side-stories and detailed background. To me, the cover illustration does a much better job at isolating the primary figures, but it creates a somewhat false impression of the complexity of the interior illustrations.