Mouses Wedding

by Ruth Belov Gross

Based upon the 12th-century retelling by Marie de France from "The Mouse Who Sought at Wife."

Genres: Picture Books

26 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Born in Philadelphia and raised in Florida, Ruth Belov Gross has lived in New York City ever since graduating from the University of Miami in 1950. Although her first job out of college was as an editorial assistant for a children's publishing house, Gross never planned to write for children herself. Instead she went on to a successful career as a medical writer, where she became adept at thorough and meticulous research and translating complex medical information into nontechnical language.

Such skills served her well when she wrote her first children's book, What Do Animals Eat?, in 1970, and though she initially assumed she would return to medical writing, she never did. “I was finally doing what I had always wanted to do — without knowing that it was what I had always wanted to do.”

Since then, Gross has written numerous books for children, specializing in nonfiction and re-tellings of traditional tales. She welcomes questions and comments from children, and often uses their input to make her work more thorough. When they are not working, Gross and her husband enjoy cooking, gardening, and vacationing in Vermont, where they have a tiny A-frame house in the woods.

Reviews

[spookybelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Man (mouse) wants to feel powerful and thinks he holds claim to any woman he wants. Blech.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mouse seeks a wife but not just any wife. He wants to marry the daughter of the most powerful thing in the world. Who will he marry?

[Forked Radish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mouse man wants a worthy wife. A mouse mama with good taste. 😼

[Siskiyou-Suzy · Rating 1 out of 5]

The moral of this story isn't terrible but the execution of it is horrible! The mouse is looking for the most powerful thing in the world. So he can marry its daughter. Ew. What a misogynist premise. It immediately pushes daughters out of the running for being powerful, along with treating a daughter like an object to access the power of her parent (but let's be real, father) along with assuming that she will have no say in the matter.