What is it about mice? - she demanded rhetorically. Why do some of my favorite books from childhood hinge on the hero quests and passions of mice, for all love? More to the point, why is it that some of the books that really turned me into a reader - books that challenged me to grapple with complex (I may even say, huge) emotions and ideas - and subsequently invite multiple rereads into adulthood - feature mousy protagonists?
I could not say for sure; but being me I can't bear to be without a theory, and my theory (thank you, Miss Anne Elk) is this: that the world looks even bigger to a mouse than to a child. And thus a mouse is a hero/ine that makes perfect sense for a child to identify with: like the child, a mouse may appear small and weak in the eyes of a huge outside world; but unlike the child, gets to be a fully autonomous being in that huge world. The mice interact with the natural world, and both human and nonhuman societies; and, being at the mercy of them all, must depend on their wits to learn the ways of the world and survive. A child gets to experience a vicariously adult world, and both its perils and its wonders are amplified thanks to the agency of a hero/ine no bigger than his or her own hand.
I have no idea how much of this is hooey - or not. All this speculatin' may just be my way of justifying my love for The Rescuers, by Margery Sharp, a book I first encountered when I was about ten. The provenance of the particular copy that introduced me to the world of Miss Bianca, Nils, and Bernard is lost to me: I rather fancy it was one of many, many finds fossacked from the huge yearly book sale that was the highlight of my school fair (for my family, at least, it was just as thrilling as the Ferris wheel). Whether I picked it out myself or my mother picked it out for me, I couldn't now tell you: all I do remember is that when I opened that slender volume of prose, tastefully bound in light blue cloth, and amply, wonderfully illustrated by the inimitable Garth Williams I knew I had entered a wide, wide new world. Follow me over the golden fleecie for more.
Read More