Thelonious Mouse by Orel Protopopescu

Protopopescu, Orel. 2011. Thelonious Mouse. Illus. by Anne Wilsdorf. Farrar Straus Giroux. ISBN: 9780374374471

Grades 3 – 5

Thelonious is a cool cat, for a mouse. In fact, he’s nothing like your typical mouse. He’s as cool as the eight-footed time of his rhythm and rhymes that populate this rather delightful picture book complete with illustrations that are as busy as Thelonious.

Not content to scurry quietly around like his siblings who are proper mice, Thelonious dances and prances his way across the floor, slapping his tail while scavenging for food when Fat Cat naps. Yet even when the cat wakes up and gives chase, Thelonious can’t help but sing and swing his tail in time with his songs as he scampers gleefully back to his hole. Taking pride in never losing his beat, no matter how close the chase, he finally is just a wee bit too cocky for his own good. Thelonious ends up trapped in the dollhouse but, never one to let a little bit of misfortune dull his day, Thelonious manages to sing the cat asleep and once more makes it home. Eventually, after several more near misses, Thelonious converts Fat Cat to the music and the story ends on a rather joyful note as both cat and mice end up cohabitating and dancing to Thelonious’ music.

It is a delightful book but with text that is quite difficult for a young child’s picture book. Consequently I can’t help but recommend this book for older readers who may struggle with a complex vocabulary but who may have the abilities to figure it out. Music teachers will delight in this opportunity to address the rhythms and rhymes of music, language arts instructors will enjoy the nonstop application of action verbs, rhyming words, and sequential actions, and students will have a small taste of ‘scat’, a light mimicking of the style of the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan.