Mouse Soup

Summary

Mouse Soup is a story with four smaller stories inside it. A mouse is sitting under a tree reading a book when a weasel pounces on him, carries him home and puts him into a cooking pot to make mouse soup. Quickly the mouse warns that the soup will not taste good without stories in it. The hungry weasel has no stories of his own, so he lets the mouse tell four. In "Bees and the Mud," a mouse finds a bees' nest on his head, and the bees mean to stay in their new home. He wades into a mud puddle, telling them that each step deeper is another room of the house, and when he lies down in the mud as if going to bed, the bees decide they want no part of so wet a house and fly away. In "Two Large Stones," two stones who have sat on one side of a hill for a very long time wonder what is on the other side. A bird tells them it is a wonderful place, and they grow sad that they can never move. Long afterward a little mouse climbs over the hill and tells them the other side looks just like theirs, and the stones are glad to be where they are. In "The Crickets," a mouse trying to sleep calls out to a cricket singing outside. Each time she complains, the cricket mistakes her meaning and brings more crickets to play, until she shouts them all away. In "The Thorn Bush," a policeman finds an old lady crying because her thorn bush is dying. He waters it, it blossoms into roses, and she thanks him with flowers. Then the mouse tells the weasel to fetch mud, bees, stones, crickets and thorns to put the stories into the soup. While the weasel is away gathering them, the mouse climbs out of the pot and runs home. Lobel wrote and illustrated the book, and Harper & Row published it in 1977 as an I Can Read book.

Top Lessons

• A clear head in danger

  The mouse is already in the pot when he speaks up. He does not cry or struggle; he thinks of the one thing the weasel lacks, stories, and offers it. Children can learn that staying calm and thinking is often the way out of trouble.

• Stories have power

  Every story the mouse tells is a small trick or puzzle, and the whole book shows a mouse saving his life by storytelling. Stories can teach, amuse and even rescue, and a child who knows many stories has something worth sharing.

• Content where you are

  The two large stones are unhappy only after the bird tells them how wonderful the other side of the hill is. When the mouse tells them it is just the same, they are glad again. The story teaches children to be thankful for their own place instead of always longing for somewhere else.

• Listening carefully

  In The Crickets, the mouse says she cannot sleep, and the cricket thinks she wants more music. Each misunderstanding makes things worse. The story is funny, but it shows how important it is to listen to what someone really means.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

No medical content. The dangers are a predator's cooking pot, bee stings and a sleepless night, all handled as comedy, and the only remedy in the book is water for a thirsty thorn bush.