Mouse Soup, by Arnold Lobel, was published in 1977 and is a children’s version of Scherazade or A Thousand and One Nights. In Lobel’s version, an adorable (I do not use the term loosely) little mouse is caught by a mean weasel who intends to make mouse soup. How this mouse saves himself is familiar to those who have read the earlier tales; he tells adventure stories. The delightfully illustrated Table of Contents lists the stories as “Bees and the Mud,” “Two Large Stones,” “The Crickets,” and “The Thorn Bush.”
The mouse’s recipe for a perfect Mouse Soup involves the weasel gathering items from each story, and the reader supposes the mouse is doomed. Read this book and see the way the mouse avoids becoming soup. It is best as a read-aloud first, then a book you and your children/grandchildren can read to each other. It is over fifty pages, but there is a stopping place, which often involves a cliff-hanger, at the end of each story/chapter. Much of each page is taken up by the delightful illustrations.
With assistance, first or second graders should be able to read this book.
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