Arabian Nights Meets Stone Soup in Mouse Soup

I love Arnold Lobel, so I was disappointed when his Mouse Tales failed to deliver the level of enjoyment I usually derive from his books. As a result, I was tentative upon opening Mouse Soup, which is described as that collection's companion. Happily, though these stories boast no recurring characters, which doesn't allow for the sort of development that happens in such books as the Frog and Toad collections, they are richly imaginative and amusing, and they all tie together in the end with the mouse's clever plan to escape being the main ingredient in mouse soup.

The book begins and ends with a mouse who has been disturbed from his reading by a sudden weasel attack. Before the weasel can cook him, the mouse's quick wits win him some time as he informs his captor that the soup will be no good without a few stories to add flavor. The gullible weasel agrees to hear the mouse's stories, at the conclusion of which he even more trustingly follows the mouse's complicated instructions for getting the stories into the soup.

The first is Bees and the Mud, the tale of a clever mouse who finds himself in an annoying situation when a bees' nest falls on his head. The bees want to stay right where they are. Luckily, he has a scheme for changing their minds...

Two Large Stones is a melancholy tale but probably my favorite of the stories. Two rocks sit side by side amid the grass and flowers and wonder what sights lie on the other side of the hill. When a passing bird tells them of the beauties they are missing, they are very sad... until a mouse comes along and offers them a different perspective.

The Crickets made me laugh because it reminds me of a familiar situation in my home. Mom might say to Dad, "Buy some peanut butter, but make sure it isn't crunchy." Unfortunately, as "crunchy" is the last word to reach his ears, that is precisely what he remembers, so the instruction has the opposite effect. Such is the case here, in which a mouse maid attempts to drive away a growing ensemble of cricket musicians who only catch the last part of her plea and not the negatives that precede it, leading to confusion and increased aggravation.

Finally, The Thorn Bush is the off-beat story of an eccentric old mousemaid who enlists the aid of a passing policemouse when the thorn bush growing in her chair begins to droop. His solution to her woes is simple but effective, and his efforts are rewarded in more ways than one.

Each of the stories is about ten pages long. The drab illustrations are very nicely done, if not quite to Frog and Toad standards. I especially applaud Two Large Stones; Lobel really does manage to make two hunks of rock look depressed. All told, a charming collection for beginning readers that makes up for my slight disappointment with Mouse Tales.