The Lion & the Mouse facts for kids

The Lion & the Mouse

Front cover
Author	Jerry Pinkney
Illustrator	Jerry Pinkney
Country	United States
Genre	Children's picture book
Publisher	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date	September 1, 2009
Pages	40
ISBN	0-316-01356-0
OCLC	263604760
LC Class	PZ8.2.P456 Li 2009

The Lion & the Mouse is a 2009 nearly wordless picture book illustrated by Jerry Pinkney that tells Aesop's fable of The Lion and the Mouse. In the story, a mouse's life is a spared by a lion. Later, after the lion is trapped, the mouse is able to set the lion free. Adapting the fable, with the moral that the weak can help the strong, as a wordless picture book was seen as a successful way of overcoming the brief plot generally found in the source stories. While it was Pinkney's first wordless picture book, it was not the first time he had told the story, having previously included it in his Aesop's Fables, published in 2000. Pinkney, who had received five Caldecott Honors, became the first African American to win the Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in the book. His illustrations were generally praised for their realism and sense of place. The cover illustrations, featuring the title characters but no text, drew particular praise.

Background and publication

This book is the second time Pinkney has told this story, the first being as part of his 2000 compendium of Aesop's Fables. When creating this book it was important for Pinkney to balance retelling a classic story and expressing the African-American experience. He also wanted to show that a fable could be "action packed" and not just moralistic. The story is Pinckney's favorite fable and he felt that the characters of the mouse and the "majestic lion" were particularly relatable for children. For Pinkney a wordless version seemed like a natural evolution of the "sparse" versions of the story he had seen elsewhere. It was Pinkney's first wordless picture book, although he began creating it intending to include words and it was only after completing the illustrations that he realized it could be wordless. When he showed it to his editor he gave her a version that included onomatopoetic animals sounds and one without; they both agreed that the animals sounds improved the story, with Pinkney commenting that, "[t]hese sounds surround me with a continuity and motion and energy ... It's nature speaking". Pinkney hoped that the story would inspire its readers to think of its African setting, the Serengeti, as a place that people need to pay attention to and save.

The book was published on September 1, 2009 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. An audio book featuring atmospheric sounds and music by Sazi Dlamini was released in 2011 by Weston Woods Studios; it is designed to be listened to together with the book.

Plot

In a book where the only words are the sounds made by the animals, the story begins at dawn. A mouse escapes several predators before coming upon a lion. The lion lets the mouse go. Later, some hunters come along and capture the lion with a net. The mouse chews through the rope of the net, freeing the lion.and they were friends

Illustrations and design

Pinkney illustrated the book using "pencil, watercolor, and colored pencils on paper." This method helps, in the words of The Horn Book Magazine review, to provide, "pleasing detail".

The book is unusual in that it does not have any text on its front dust cover, just the picture of the lion, though this is something that the book's publisher had done before. The back cover features the mouse, such that when the book is opened the mouse and the lion look at each other. The events of the story further the personality traits shown during the course of the story; the lion is powerful while the mouse is curious and alert. These personalities are shown through the animals' body parts that are illustrated in close-up.

The book's illustrations of the Serengeti were seen as well-researched and carefully drawn. Part of this is that the illustrations of the animals are drawn in correct proportion to each other. While the perspective is drawn at human eye-level, the reader is encouraged to think of other perspectives, such as to look down to notice details like the mouse. Further, the animals are able to convey emotions without becoming personified. Pinkney's use of panels in select moments drew comparisons to that of a silent movie and helped to convey the pace and intensity of the action. Other elements of the design, such as Pinkney's use of white space, also enhance the mood and quality of the book.

Story and themes

By making a nearly wordless picture book, Pinkney is able to overcome the challenge faced when adapting Aesop's fables, of using a short story and writing a full length book out of it. Several critics commented on how this format requires great imagination and investment from the reader in order to follow the story. Wendy Lukeheart writing in School Library Journal suggested that, "the lack of words in this version allows for a slower, subtle, and ultimately more satisfying read".

The book's theme of how the "powerful can crush the weak" was seen as particularly timely. Unlike in many retellings of the story, in this wordless book the mouse is unable to vocally bargain with the lion. Yet the story is still able to capture the original story's message "that definitions of meek and might are simply a matter of perspective". Through their respective strengths and weaknesses the lion and the mouse are able to find a need to collaborate and even be friends. Pinkney was also interested in exploring the setting of the story and the characters' families. The "temptation, danger, and choice" the characters have to face could suggest an Garden of Eden-like setting, according to Horn Book.