A Mouse Called Wolf

A Mouse Called Wolf was written by Dick King-Smith and illustrated by Jon Goodell. It was published in 1997 by Dell Yearling. It is a realistic fiction book with a bit of fantasy mixed in.

This is the story of a mouse, his 13 brothers and sisters, their mother and the pianist they share their home with. The mother has her children and wolf is the very smallest. She decides that he needs an extra special, extra long name to make up for his small size. She sees a sheet of music from the piano next to their hole and reads the name Wolfgang Amadeus Mo.. on the top and decides it is the perfect name for her smallest son. So that's what she names him and his sibling shortened it to wolf. Eventually all of Wolf's brother's and sister's moved out of their hole to other places around the house, but Wolf stays with his mother. They venture out at night to find food and during the day Wolf listens to the woman play the piano and dreams of being a singer one day. His mother assures him that mice cannot sing, but Wolf is determined and tries his luck one day. It turns out that he has the loveliest voice you can imagine. One day the cat chases Wolf and his mother into the piano and the lid slams shut, trapping them inside. Wolf's mother is afriad they will never make it out alive, so Wolf sings to her to comfort her. When the woman comes to the piano, she hears Wolf singing and is delighted to see a singing mouse. She leaves chocolate for Wolf and his mother and slowly brings him out of his hole and convinces him to sing for her. She teachers Wolf all kinds of lovely songs and he sings for her as she plays. One day the woman, Mrs. Honeybee, is not at the piano at the time she usually is. Wolf ventures upstairs to see what has happened and finds Mrs. Honeybee laying on the floor hurt. He doesn't know what to do, so in an attempt to get someone's attention he sings as loud as he can from the window and manages to get a policeman's attention who comes to see what the matter is and rescues Mrs. Honeybee. Mrs. Honeybee has to be in the hospital for a long time, so while she is gone Wolf decides to compose his very own song to sing for her when she returns. Mrs. Honeybee finally comes home and one night when she is just laying down to sleep, Wolf comes upstairs and sings his Sonata for her. She is overjoyed and decides to name her furry friend after a wonderful composer just like this mouse. She names him Wolfgang Amadeus, Wolf for short, without ever knowing that was already his name!

This is a short, and entertaining novel for kids just starting to read chapter books. Wolf is a charming little mouse who will win the hearts of all of his readers. I really loved that Wolf believes in himself even when his mother does not. She is actually not really interested in his singing until the very end of the book when Wolf sings her his own sonata. I was not really impressed with Wolf's mother for most of the book. She was only interested in food and was not really interested in her son hardly at all. I also love the unlikely friendship formed in this book. The old woman and Wolf form a bond that surpasses even communication, which they cannot have. This is really a sweet story and I think kids will really enjoy it.

This is a great book for teaching about music. It mentions Sonatas and Composers and Octaves. I think it would be great for a music lesson to show kids these terms in context.