There's No Place Like Home, and No Illustrator like Jan Brett

Most people have heard the story of the town mouse and the country mouse. It’s an old tale that has appeared in many different manifestations over the years, but few versions are more charming than that of writer/illustrator Jan Brett. One of my absolute favorite illustrators, Brett puts incredible detail into every one of her illustrations. Each page is a work of art.

Town Mouse Country Mouse follows two different storylines, alternating pages between the adventures of the town mouse and his wife and the country mouse and his wife. The first two-page spread in the story (though not in the book – the prior three pages are lavishly illustrated as well) establishes the surroundings that each couple is used to, and it isn’t difficult to see that the transition from one setting to another is going to be rather difficult. The town mice dress lavishly in silk and glittery jewels, lounging atop an elegant clock. The country mice, meanwhile, dress in rags; one wears an outfit fashioned out of ferns and flowers. They sit anxiously on the roof of their tree stump house, which is covered with greenery and whose windows sport mushroom awnings.

The town mice are more proactive than the country mice, heading straight for the woods when the husband recollects his idyllic childhood there. The country mice at first just daydream about the abundant cheese in town, but when the town mice stop outside their door they propose a housing trade. Both parties agree enthusiastically to the deal, but none of the four mice have any idea of the dangers in store.

We do, however, as each full-page illustration is framed on each side with a picture detailing the activities of the creature that will ultimately be the mice’s most powerful adversary. For the country mice, it is the cat, dressed in brown pants and a sleeveless gold-trimmed shirt decorated with flowers over a white silk shirt. He is shown in such domestic pursuits as cooking and curling up for a nap in the kitchen and speaks in rhyme when addressing the mice, reminiscent of the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk. The silent owl is far more threatening, swooping from branch to branch and scanning for prey against a stormy sky. His clothes are much simpler: red overalls and a plaid shirt. It takes longer for him to locate the mice, but when he does he is even more frightening than the cat is to the country mice.

The border around the picture changes with each page. As the country mice and town mice agree to switch houses, the trim is of pine needles with fungus and pine cones at the corners or tips. Other borders include yarn with button corners, pencil with postage stamp corners, and feathers and branches with maple leaf and helicopter corners.

While the illustrations are the book’s selling point, the story as told in words is very nice a well. At about 50 to 150 words per page the text propels the story along. The carefully chosen dialogue and description fits the mood of the illustrations perfectly.

Town Mouse Country Mouse is filled with beauty and humor and leaves the reader with the message that when it comes right down to it, there’s no place like home. The illustrations are a joy to pore over, from the mouse hairs so carefully drawn that they could be counted to the town mice’s corduroy slipper bed whose soft ridges are so lifelike they are nearly tangible. A masterpiece from cover to cover, this is not a picture book to be missed.