Review by Booklist Review
PreS.^-Gr. 2. Fleming offers an engaging conceit executed in a marvelous medium. A hardworking mouse is building the alphabet: on each page the industrious rodent creates a letter using an activity beginning with that letter. Mouse dyes the D--a shimmery tie-dye effect; levels the L (using a pile of bricks and a carpenter's level), and quilts the Q. Most of these actions are related to construction or artwork, and each letter, usually much larger than the mouse, is sturdily indicative of itself. For instance, the W being welded is made of wrought iron lattice. Fleming has poured colored cotton fiber through hand-cut stencils to make her illustrations, which are thus bold in outline and shape and vivid with an almost incandescent coloring. Although this has the simplicity of many alphabet books, it also has momentum as the project moves forward, and ingenuity in its execution. The exhausted mouse's month of hard work is rewarded: the last page shows the completed alphabet. A handsome poster of the alphabet is included. --GraceAnne A. DeCandido
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Mouse, the rambunctious rodent first seen in Fleming's Lunch, returns in this concept-book salute to hands-on (or, in this case, paws-on) creativity. Beginning at the beginning the letter A, of course Mouse fashions letters by means of various arts and crafts. Fleming has embraced the broadest definition of "construction" to include such activities as sawing, gluing, buttoning, icing (as in a cake) and quilting. Young children will no doubt enjoy seeing Mouse scurry sometimes humorously splattered with materials from one letter to the next, although they may puzzle over a few of the scenes. A few of the entries strain to fit the overall theme as when Mouse X-rays the X, Yanks the Y and Judges the J. The always playful, exuberant mood of Fleming's handmade-paper artwork, however, remains intact. Her broad range of dynamic, intense colors envelops readers with its sunny warmth. Ages 2-5. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-K-One very active mouse constructs an alphabet with 26 sturdy verbs. Several of them may be unfamiliar to the preschool set-airbrush, dye, judge, level, quilt, tile, weld, or X-ray-but the art, combined with a helpful adult, should make the meanings clear. The vibrant illustrations "were created by pouring colored cotton fiber through hand-cut stencils" and have appealing texture and intense color. Though the text is limited to verb/letter ("folds the F, glues the G," etc.), the art (A and Z have spreads) is the strength of this offering. Mouse, who first appeared in Fleming's Lunch (Holt, 1995), is an enthusiastic builder though a bit untidy. Novice students of the alphabet may be enticed into constructing their own alphabets and/or gathering their own set of verbs. A worthy addition to the sea of ABC books.-Jody McCoy, The Bush School, Seattle, WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Preschool) Martha Stewart, move over. Fleming's exuberant Mouse (Lunch, rev. 1/93) takes on the alphabet-from airbrushing A to zippering Z-with all the craft maven's industriousness and a lot more joyful abandon. Dragging yellow ""caution construction"" tape, Mouse leads the way across the copyright and title pages and gets right to work. Gluing G, measuring M, quilting Q, and welding W, Mouse builds letters on well-designed pages saturated with color. Each page is devoted to one letter and a different activity, and Fleming's lively paper-pulp illustrations are especially well suited to the topic. Mouse's activities will be familiar to the alphabet-book crew, and the combination of household items (icing, pruning shears, vacuum), preschool basics (buttons, glue, a zipper), and construction tools (level, hammer and nails, saw) is aimed perfectly at the audience. Incorporating the concept of planning(with a tip of the hard hat to Ms. Stewart's magazine feature), Mouse's ""Work Schedule and things to do"" calendar appears on the back of the book jacket and shows Mouse's busy month filled with such tasks as picking up a new spatula and going to the paper store. On the book's last page, an exhausted but satisfied Mouse gazes at the calendar, which now has twenty-six work days crossed off, and ""Hurray!!"" written in blue grease pencil after the thirty-first. It's a good thing. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The little mouse from Fleming's Lunch (1992) literally and alliteratively works his way through the alphabet. The emphasis is on process; rather than introducing appropriate objects for each letter of the alphabet, this cheery offering presents verbs: "Mouse airbrushes the A, / buttons the B, / carves the C, . . . " With the exception of A and Z, which occupy double-page spreads, each letter takes up one page, the happily industrious mouse leveling, measuring, and nailing his way along. Fleming's trademark pulp paintings glow, the brightly colored letters standing out against equally bright and uncluttered backgrounds. The text presents the letters subtly and effectively, making it a good bridge between the very beginning alphabet books and more sophisticated offerings. Most of the lettering is done in an uneven serif font reminiscent of typescript, but the letter being worked on appears in a clean sans-serif font, the lower-case exemplar at the beginning of its appropriate verb and the upper-case as the object. The cleanness of the sans-serif font nicely complements the in-process messiness of the illustrated letters. If some of the verbs stretch the concept (Mouse "judges the J" and, inevitably, "x-rays the X"), others are just plain inspired, as Mouse prunes the topiary P and then vacuums a purple V pattern on a very dirty rug. Here's an alphabet book that's certainly worth making room for. (Picture book. 3-6)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
