Mouse Soup

Mouse Soup is a 1977 picture book by noted illustrator Arnold Lobel. Beginning with the simple sentence "A mouse sat under a tree", the book goes on to tell the story of a mouse who has to trick Weasel from turning Mouse into Mouse Soup. He does that by telling stories about Bees and the Mud, Two Large Stones, The Crickets, and The Thorn Bush, and tells Weasel to put them into his soup. It is then assumed that Mouse got away and Weasel got stung by bees.

Audio Recording

In 1978, Scholastic Records issued a 7-inch 33 1/3 r.p.m. record (SCC 2807) of the author himself reading the story aloud. It was directed by Bernice Chardiet, produced by Robert Mack, and contained music by Albert Hague.

Stop Motion film

In 1992, the book was made into a 26-minute musical stop-motion animated film, directed by John Clark Matthews and starring Buddy Hackett as the voice of Mouse.^[1]

Summary

Mouse is in a jam-soon he'll be weasel soup. Weasel is ready for his dinner. and poor mouse is it. Just in time, he thinks up a clever and entertaining way to distract the weasel from serving up mouse soup for dinner.

Plot

A mouse leaves his house to sit under a tree to read a book. While he reads, a weasel suddenly captures him. The weasel then takes the mouse back to his home, thinking of making Mouse Soup, with the mouse. Just as the weasel puts the mouse into the pot, the mouse tells the weasel that the soup will not taste good without any stories in it. The weasel does feel hungry, but agrees to let the mouse tell him four stories that will go in the pot.

In the first story, a mouse is walking along when a bee nest falls on his head. He tries to reason with the bees to go away, but the bees like his head as his home. The mouse then comes up with a plan to go into a mud hole (making the bees think its his home), which as he goes deeper, the bees still like the mouse until they hate his bedroom and finally go away.

In the second story, two large stones sit on a hill and wonder what's on the other side, as they can't move from the spot where they sit. When they ask a bird to check, the bird soon returns and tells them about buildings on the other side. A hundred years soon pass and when a mouse comes, the stones ask the mouse to check the other side of the hill. The mouse soon tells them that its the same as the side the stones reside on. This make the stones feel glad that they're not missing anything, but wonder whether the mouse or the bird was right.

In the third story, a cricket gets the urge to sing a song in the middle of the night, but his singing disturbs a lady mouse who is trying to get some sleep. Each time the lady mouse demands not to have any more music, the cricket thinks she said she wants more music and so calls over a lot of friends. Soon, the crickets are making so much noise with their singing that the lady mouse simply tells them to go away, which the cricket wonders why she didn't say so before. After the crickets go away, the mouse goes back to bed.

In the fourth story, a police mouse comes to the home of an old lady mouse because she is crying. She shows him a thorn bush that is growing out of her chair and explains she's crying because it's dying. Right away, the police mouse throws some water on the thorn bush, causing it to grow into a bunch of roses. To thank the police mouse, the old lady mouse gives him some of the roses.

After finishing his stories, the mouse tells the weasel to bring in the things that were associated with the stories. The weasel leaves his house, without closing the door on the way out, allowing the mouse to escape and follow the weasel at a distance. The mouse then witnesses the weasel suffering for his fool's errand. After getting stung by bees, gathering up mud, struggling with two heavy stones, jumping to catch crickets, and getting pricked by a thorn bush, the weasel thinks he'll have a tasty soup. Upon arriving home, the weasel discovers that he's been tricked, upon discovering the empty pot. The mouse, at this time, hurries back to his own house and, after having some dinner, finishes reading his book.

Notes

1. ^ Mouse Soup on YouTube

External links

• Mouse Soup at the Internet Movie DatabaseTemplate:Arnold Lobel