Mrs. Marlowe's Mice

by Frank Asch and Devin Asch

Book Overview

Meet Mrs. Eleanor Marlowe, a young widow who lives in an apartment by herself --- not counting the extended family of mice who secretly live with her. Harboring mice is a very serious offense in Cat... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1554530229
• ISBN13: 9781554530229
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Kids Can Press
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 10.0" x 11.3"
• Age Range: 5 to 9 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 4

Customer Reviews

Fantastic Book!

Fantastic book. Marvelous art work in the illustrations. Product was in very good condition.

A deep book that can be enjoyed on many levels

This is a long picture book by great father and son team. The issues tackled here are pretty serious, though in the guise of a cat and mouse tail. Mrs. Marlow is a young widow who, at great risk to her own safety, hides a family of mice from a gestapo-like police society. If you read this to a 5 year old, just let them enjoy the story. Perhaps for an older child you may want to discuss it. Both the writing and the pictures are superb.

4 1/2* Watching the Detectives

This follow-up to "Mr. Maxwell's Mouse" isn't as darkly witty; it's geared towards a younger, more innocent audience. As a result, it's not as surprising or satiric as the former. The surprises are more predictable, and there are some chances not taken. However, what's remarkable about `Mrs. Marlowe's Mice" is how it creates a complete society, with unmistakable social and political undertones that capture the neo-paranoia of new millennium America. Whereas Maxwell focused on social/class "relations" at the dinner table, Marlowe takes an Orwellian view of society at large. Lest this semi-intellectual analysis put you off from the book, let me assure you that Marlowe is a delightful book for toddlers and young grade-schoolers; they will reduce the political shadings to the familiar story of good guys versus bad guys, or in this case, good cats vs. bad. Let's get to that story now--the one that your kids will enjoy. Mrs. Marlowe, a respected feline librarian lives in a community where Department of Catland Security keeps a close watch for mice and those cats who would harbor them. Mrs. Marlowe is a She's already suspected by nosy neighbor Mrs. Godfrey; after all, Eleanor Marlowe never invites her over for tea. "It almost feels like you're hiding .g something in there!" Mrs. Godfrey has no idea how right she is, for Mrs. Marlowe is hiding a whole extended mouse family! They scurry out of drawers and cupboards when she comes home, often with something good to eat--like cheese! The Asch's draw a slightly ambivalent relationship here: Mrs. Marlowe thoughtfully slices the cheese for the mice, but that very large knife looms large in the mouse mind: "If I didn't know better, I'd say Mrs. Marlow was fattening us up for the kill." "'Oh, what a horrid thing to say, Albert, squeaked Aunt Gerty...'" No sooner does Grandpa Paul note that Mrs. Marlowe's harboring of the mice is "at great risk to her own welfare!" than two Catland Security watch cats come pounding on Marlowe's door: Lieutenant Manx and his comedic foil, Sergeant Baker. The Asches play Manx's hard-boiled but ultimately incompetent detective persona to the hilt, like a parody of 1940's detective movies. He "snaps" at Mrs. Marlowe, lectures Baxter on police procedure (funny, because his observations are only too obvious for the human reader), and, above all, maintains his macho. When Mrs. Marlowe offers Manx some hors d'ouevres {"would you gentlecats care for one"), Sergeant Baxter (rather like Watson in the Basil Rathbone Holmes' movies), eagerly replies, "Don't mind if I do." No dice: "'This isn't a party, Baxter', hissed Lieutenant Manx. `Put that down...'" Unfortunately, one of the youngest (and cutest) of the hiding mice slips, and Manx finds him. Am uncertain fate awaits him and his family, until the quick thinking Marlowe pretends it's just a single stray mouse, and shows her disdain and good citizenship by apparently eating him! When the disappointed Manx and Baxter leave,

A great story telling experience!

After reading the book myself, I shared the story with two first grade classes and held them spellbound with the story. The illustrations are phenomenal and the 6-7 year olds loved every minute of the story. When it was over, they wanted to hear more from this author. All of Frank Asch's stories are spellbinding, and hold children's interest all the way through.

Maus lite?

I used to think that employing a computer to handle all your illustrating needs in a picture book was a risky proposition. Then we entered into 2007 and suddenly there were books like Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug and The Wizard using computers in radically different ways. Finally I got a glimpse of "Mrs. Marlowe's Mice", and now I think that it is safe to say that I've been won over to this style of artistic expression. In a sense, this particular book is a companion to the equally bizarre Mr. Maxwell's Mouse, put out by the same author and illustrator. Of the two, however, I may have to admit that I prefer this latest title. For cat lovers (and mice lovers alike) there's little to compare to the sweet madness that is the world of Frank and Devin Asch. To the casual observer Mrs. Marlowe is just your average librarian widow. But to those who know her, and know her well, she's a very dangerous person: a mouse-keeper. Mouse-keeping is strictly forbidden, but within her home Mrs. Marlowe oversees a large number of happy well-fed rodentia. Of course, there's always the suspicion in the back of the minds of the mice that perhaps Mrs. Marlowe is just fattening them up for the kill, but the real test comes the day when her home is inspected by two policecats from Catland Security. Though she's adept at keeping the authorities at bay, when little Billy falls from his hiding space what happens next nobody expects. When I was a kid one of my favorite sequences in the Monty Python film And Now For Something Completely Different was the animated section that showed a huge rampaging cat attacking a town. It was basically a photograph of a real cat animated in bizarre ways and somehow, that imagine kept popping into my head as I read this book. I mean, the way that the cats are portrayed in the Asch titles is doggone weird, you have to admit. It's not many steps from the cats here to William Wegman's human-handed dogs. I had a bit of a time getting over Mrs. Marlowe's furry palms, but you can't imagine how much I appreciated that Mr. Asch the younger didn't slap a head of hair on her or something. He did give her eyelashes (the international unspoken symbol indicating that an animal is a girl) but aside from that she looks much like a very real kitty cat. I was fond of just how attractive Mrs. Marlowe was too. She practically sashays across the room when distracting the police officers away from her illegal mousie brood. Her clothing is relatively conservative (we are talking about a librarian here) but she has just the loveliest way of reclining casually against a chair. It's amazing the menfolk can look anywhere else. The art in this book is really quite clever too. On the street outside Mrs. Marlowe's home everything is brown and colorless. Even her normally deep green eyes take on a sepia hue before entering into her home. The little details are fun to find as well. Kids with sharp eyes will spot the cat across the street that ends up rep