MOUSIE LOVE
BloomsburyUSA * Illustrated by Josée Masse * ISBN ISBN: 978-1-59990-111-4
Flap copy: The moment Tully saw Frill, he fell in love. "Will you marry me?" he asked. Frill didn't say no. She didn't say yes. She didn't say maybe. What exactly will Frill say in this tender mousie love story? Publisher's Weekly: In this rodent screwball comedy,
a boy mouse named Tully and a girl mouse named Frill meet cute while
fleeing a rapacious cat. Tully is so smitten that he can think of nothing
but proposing, even when the cat is breathing down their necks; Frill
stays focused on the here and now, thus ensuring that the couple survive
to celebrate their wedding on the final page. Although Chaconas's (Baby's
Song) heroine would have benefited from a more forceful personality
(she's more June Allyson than Katharine Hepburn), the text is breezy
enough to keep the action bouncing along, while the sturdy, recurring
narrative motif—proposal, chase, recovery—should tickle readers' sense
of anticipation (a refrain tees up every chase: “Frill didn't say no.
She didn't say yes. She didn't say maybe”). As always, Masse (The
Princess Who Had Almost Everything) employs a spectacular sense of
burnished color. The images never quite take off—the cat feels flat, and
the protagonists are overly coy—though the painterly, canvas-textured
renderings, while dampening the action somewhat, lend an air of vintage
storybook romance. |
AMAZON
BARNES & NOBLE
BORDERS
BOOKS-A-MILLION
INDIEBOUND
© 2009 Dori Chaconas