Kids into books: A Mouse Called Wolf

Kids into books: A Mouse Called Wolf

Author: Dick King-Smith

Illustrator: Alex de Wolf

Publisher: Random House, $12.95

Age Group: 7-9 years


Luckily the room was thickly carpeted, and he fell very lightly, usually landing on his feet without harm. But the others, of course, just laughed as they peered over the edge and looked down on him.

They were not very nice to him, partly on account of his lack of size, and partly because it seemed to them that he was his mother's favourite, but mostly on account of his names.

All the time they heard Mary Mouse's anxious voice, crying, "Wolfgang Amadeus! Wolfgang Amadeus! Where are you, are you all right, did you hurt yourself falling off the piano, Wolfgang Amadeus?"

At first Bill and Jane and Tom and Ann and all the rest used to tease their little brother - out of their mother's hearing - about his strange long names, and they even made up a rhyme which they used to squeak at him all together (especially every time he fell off).

'Who is small and weak and wet?

Who is Mummy's little pet?

Who's no bigger than a louse?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mouse'