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


"Why, to be sure the last three letters of the third word are missing, but there's no doubt what they were. The smallest you may be, but these names will make you the greatest, Wolfgang Amadeus Mouse!"

Some weeks later the mouse cubs began to venture out of the hole in the wainscot at night. Before long they learned to climb up the left front leg of the grand piano, and they played about on the keyboard.

In particular, they liked to run races along the keys. Sometimes they were flat races - along the fifty-two white keys from bass to treble - and sometimes they were hurdle races - over the thirty-six raised black keys. Some nights one cub would win, some nights another, but Wolfgang Amadeus, being so small, was always last.

He found the hurdles difficult to get over, and quite often in the flat races, the rush of his bigger brothers and sisters would cause him to loose his footing on the slippery white keys, and he would fall to the floor