Little Mouse's Valentine

by Dave Ross

Follows the adventures of Little Mouse as he goes to purchase a valentine.

36 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Dave Ross is an artist, author and educator whose every career move has involved kids. First published in 1975, his bibliography includes 39 titles. Dave's most recent book, T'Bugs, is a science fiction chapter book for young readers. [Tom Lemery is co-author]. It was released in 2017.
In 1981, Dave and his wife Kathleen founded Helping Hands School in Clifton Park, NY. They ran this preschool for special needs children for 30 years, retiring in 2010. The school is still open and serves hundreds of children and their families in Saratoga County.

Reviews

[Ziwei Cheng]

This story is about a fox traveling in the forest. He walks for so long and is very thirsty. So, he drinks an old ladies’ milk. When she finds out her milk has been drunk up by the fox, the old lady cuts the fox’s tail. Then, this poor fox begs the woman to give him back his tail. But, the woman insists that the fox should give her back her milk first. Then, the fox turns for help to a cow hoping that the cow gives him some milk. Similar to the old woman, the cow hopes the fox can bring her some grass before he gives the fox some milk. So, the fox asks help from many people for the grass. No one gives help to him for free and the fox has to go one by one and trade the things. The whole process is so suffering until the fox meets a miller, who does not ask for rewards from the fox to get the grains. So, the fox gets some grains for free and he brings back everyone’s needs and finally gets back his tail.
This story attracts me because it tells us a truth: in this world few people can do something freely and selflessly to help people. Everyone wants something from others. So, when we need help from others, we first would think about what we could do for others and then get what we could get.
The whole book is full of pictures. Each page demonstrates a different background with different colorful pictures. The sentence on each page is also very simple for the kids to understand. Apart from the above shining points, the story is presented in a direct dialogue conversation form. The third person leads the readers to know what happens in the story. So, to the kids the story is so close to them because of this interesting writing style. Finally, the book does not just simplify an interesting colorful story book but also reflects the truth of the society. It is a good book.