Quotes
SLJ 8/1/05REID, Barbara. The Subway Mouse. illus. by author. unpaged. CIP. Scholastic. 2005. Tr $15.95. ISBN 0-439-72827-4. LC 2004016641. K-Gr 2-Nib lives with his family beneath a busy subway station. He loves to listen to stories, especially those about a special but dangerous place called Tunnel's End. A true pack rat, he collects all sorts of objects and lovingly arranges them into a cozy nest. When he returns to find that his cousins have ransacked his home, he decides to leave and go in search of Tunnel's End. Along the way he meets Lola, a female mouse who joins him. When they finally crawl out of the tunnel and into a starlit night, they discover a world that is more dangerous than they expected, but also more beautiful, and make a home together. Although the story is somewhat flat and predictable, Reid's artwork is outstanding. The pictures were made "with plasticine that is shaped and pressed onto illustration board"; decorated with acrylic paint, found objects, and other materials; and then photographed. The objects (Popsicle sticks, lollipops, candy wrappers, etc.) are used with great creativity. The images are both realistic and clever and have an inviting, three-dimensional appearance. Young children will pore over the details and older children will get ideas to create their own pictures.-Susan Lissim, Dwight School, New York CityKirkus ***STARRED*** 5/1/05Bits of real litter and found bric-a-brac in Reid's plasticine subterranean scenes add an air of authenticity to this grand tale of a mouse who leaves his cozy subway station nest to find the fabled "Tunnel's End." Sparked by elders' stories of beauty and danger in a roofless land, young Nib sets off into the dark, encountering both hazards and companionship along the way, and ultimately emerging beneath the stars to find his goal exactly as terrifying and splendid as he has imagined it. Between lines of silvery track and beneath rows of commuters' shoes, cuffs and ankles, big-eared mice with combed, furry bodies forage on two legs for scraps while trains hurtle by. Seen from mouse-eye level, the grimy, wonderfully detailed setting adds a tongue-in-cheek air, as well as making a properly vivid backdrop for this intrepid venture into the unknown. (Picture book. 6-8) Boolist Satrred 9/1/05*STAR* Reid, Barbara. The Subway Mouse. 2005. 40p. illus. Scholastic, $15.95 (0-439-72827-4). PreS-Gr. 2. Subway mouse Nib has grown up listening to bedtime stories about Tunnels End, a "dangerous, roofless world," where the air is sublime, the food tasty, and the nests soft and green. Nib's fascination with the fabled land grows as he gets older, and he feels increasingly more crowded and restless in his underground community. At last, he sets off on a perilous journey, traveling the tunnel to its finish. Along the way, he meets Lola, a lovely mouse who joins him on his quest, and together they reach open air and start a family. Reid creates a charming, lively adventure in short, smoothly paced sentences, but it's her marvelous collage illustrations that really bring the characters and richly imagined world to life. Working in found materials and expertly molded, brightly colored plasticine, she sculpts remarkably expressive characters and a vivid, subterranean world filled with "thundering trains" and messy people, whose scattered refuse (created from bright scraps of feathers, beads, and food wrappers) ingeniously lines the homes of the mice below the tracks. Children will enjoy poring over the detailed images of the world from a mouse's viewpoint, and many will see themselves in intrepid Nib, who feels at odds with his cacophonous family and dreams of a sweet, cozy nest of his own. -Gillian Engberg
