Mouse Was Mad by Linda Urban, illustrated by Henry Cole.

Mouse is hopping mad.  Until Hare tells him he looks “ridiculous.”  But when Mouse tries to hop like Hare, he tumbles into a mud puddle.  Mouse is now even angrier.  Stomping mad, in fact.  Bear arrives and shows him how he should be stomping.  But when Mouse tries, it doesn’t have the same earth shaking effects.  In fact, it’s much more Mouse-shaking and Mouse falls into another mud puddle.  Now Mouse is screaming mad.  Bobcat tries to show Mouse how to really scream, but Mouse, you guessed it, falls into another mud puddle.  The book resolves with Mouse being so angry he can’t even move.  Now the other animals are impressed and try to be just as still with limited success.  Is that a smile readers see on Mouse’s face?

The end papers of this book are great.  At the front, they show Mouse gripped by utter rage and in the end we can see him being oh-so happy.  Urban has created a wonderful mix of emotions, humor, and repetition that will be embraced by toddlers and preschoolers.  Her repeated dunking of Mouse in mud is great fun, offering the predictability that young children look for.  It is also very effective against the unpredictable emotion of anger.  The humor works well as a foil for that emotion.

Cole’s illustrations are very effective, showing Mouse really, really angry, tail twitching as he watches the others do demonstrations.  The facial expressions of the animals are very evocative of emotions.  Mouse seems to have an infinite number of angry looks that range from simmering peevishness to outright fury.  Cole cleverly builds the tension before each fall into the mud with a series of illustrations showing Mouse just before the fall, in mid-air, and finally and delightfully covered in mud.

Highly recommended for storytimes on emotions or mice, this book is a winner of a read aloud and will have all of the children in your group enthralled.  It can also be used as a book to get children moving, since you can have children stomp, hop, and yes, even scream.

(Reviewed from copy checked out from public library.)

This book has been well-covered by the kidslitosphere.  Too many places have mentioned it to list here!