Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse

The picture book Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse is written and illustrated by Leo Lionni. The target audience of the book is boys and girls from kindergarten to third grade.

-Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars *****

-Summary: A fantastic story of friendship between Alexander, the real mouse, and Willy who is the wind-up mouse. Alexander wishes to be a wind-up mouse until new toys replace Willy and Alexander uses his wish to become a wind-up mouse to turn Willy into a regular mouse so they can be together forever.

Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse is a simple story with a strong message of friendship. Readers can connect to the book through Alexander’s longing to belong and want to be loved by someone and the friendship that is created between him and Willy. Everyone gets excited to make a new friend and to explore what that new friendship brings. There is good use of dialogue in the story to help bring it to life. It incorporates fun ideas such as a magic purple pebble and a lizard that has the power to grant wishes that help bring imagination to the story. It is animal based which most children enjoy instead of always using humans as main characters. The illustrations are simple and go along well with the story. There is just enough going on to enhance the story but they are not over taking the storyline. The illustrations range from looking very two-dimensional to images popping off the page through three-dimensional images. The illustrations also seem to have a lot of texture and constructed from a variety of materials. It was awarded the Caldecott Honors for it's illustrations.

 

I would use this book in my classroom to compliment the ideas of friendship and acceptance. Ideally, I would use this in kindergarten or first grade to explain friendship for how to establish friendship, what friendship means, and what types of things friends do for one another through Alexander and examining what he does throughout the book. This book can be related to self-acceptance and appreciation in that Alexander originally wants to be like Willy because he is loved and appreciated by people but ultimately he should love who he is what makes him special. Just because people are different does not mean they are better or more special. This can be relayed to students and lead into a discussion how people differ but also comparing how unique it is to be different and that is what makes us who we are. This book would be great for read aloud especially since the ideas behind the book are meant for younger students who may not know how to read yet. This book would be great for beginning readers too in that it uses simple diction and the story line is easy to follow. The illustrations also give contextual clues as well.