The Marvelous Mouse Man

by Mary Ann Hoberman, Laura Forman (Illustrator)

As more and more mice pour into an unsuspecting town, the people grow increasingly distressed. Who can get rid of the pests? The marvelous Mouse Man claims he can lead them away--ut he ends up taking more than anyone bargained for. Animals and humans play follow-the-leader in this fresh and funny adaptation of a familiar story. But it's an inspired little girl who finally comes to the rescue of her neighbors . . . and of the marvelous Mouse Man.

Genres: Picture Books

40 pages, Hardcover

First published April 8, 2002

About the author

Mary Ann Hoberman was an American author of over 30 children's books.

Reviews

[Relyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love fairy tales and I really enjoyed this funny riff on The Pied Piper. I just love Mary Ann Hoberman. I don't think she's written a thing I don't enjoy.

[Brian Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poem of the pied piper with a happy ending in a little world that feels alive.

Story: Variations on popular fairy tales can go either way. This one captures the original's plot, adds a happy ending, and moves it to a unique setting (a small American town at the turn of the century from what I can tell). While most of the action is driven by adults, the climax focuses on a little girl reasoning with the grown ups. The story is a little long for a picture book, and the pacing isn't quite quick enough to support it. It never drags. As I got to the end I was just surprised there were more pages.

Writing: A poem with meter and rhyme. The meter is unique, iambic tetrameter but every four line stanza is missing a syllable at the end. There is probably a term for it but I just complain about poetry on the internet. Desire being a unique meter, the poem flows and the poet is kind enough to rarely deviate from the form.

Art: Beautifully painted to take you into the world. Every scene has extra details that give the feeling of a world that exists around the story. Composition is varied and always in point, switching between scenes showing a whole street and close-ups of a character. This is where my bias shows up as well. The point-of-view character for the art is a raven-haired little girl, just like the girl I read the book to.

[Kayla Yirdaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great book for teaching predictions and supporting your prediction with text/images from the book, in combination with information from personal experience. My students enjoyed the rhyme thought it came at the expense of sentence structure. I worried that my classroom wouldn't understand some of the words in the story because the writing feels less than modern but they tracked well. The book is overall long, we split it up across two days. However, they loved the cliff hanger and wanted to know the end of the story.

[Jeani · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good one! Interesting and engaging and one that we couldn't stop talking about.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. I was less than impressed by this offering from the usually great Mary Ann Hoberman. The poetry flows well enough and the illustrations are nice but I just wasn't much of a fan of the story and it seemed over-long, besides. It's all about the a mouse infestation in a town and how they need someone to get rid of the mice. The marvelous mouse man arrives with a plan—and a fan—to waft the fragrance (stench!) of cheese over the hillsides and draw the mice away. But, when the mice leave, so do the cats, then the dogs--then the children to run after their pets! Whatever are the townspeople going to do!? The solution is kind, thank goodness, but I just found the tale a bit tedious, overall.

[Michael Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

The rhyme is nicely done.

[Shelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A silly story that reminded me of the pipe piper at first. But then changed into its own story.