Reviewing "Manxmouse" by Paul Gallico

...for all his small size and defenselessness, when it came to doing something for others, there seemed to be nothing Manxmouse would not dare.

~ Manxmouse by Paul Gallico, page 111

Most epic stories follow heroes—usually warriors—who go on adventures, quests, and journeys where they protect the weak, defeat monsters and villains, and eventually earn their glorious reward and a place in legend and history.

Manxmouse: The Mouse Who Knew No Fear by Paul Gallico is an epic tale, but its protagonist is a mouse—a fearless, good-hearted mouse, but still a mouse—and the story follows him on a rambling adventure where he protects elephants and tigers and defeats his own fate, before settling down into a happy ending that isn’t quite the norm for epic legends. 

It all starts with a ceramist who specializes in making mouse figurines. After a wedding celebration where he’s had a bit too much cider, he returns home and works all through the night on what—in his altered state of mind—he believes to be the best mouse figurine in the world, an epitome of mousedom and an embodiment of all the ceramist’s knowledge and experience of the world.

When he wakes up in the morning, however, the hung-over ceramist barely remembers the night before, and only vaguely recalls that he put something in his kiln overnight. He retrieves the “epitome of mousedom” to see that what he’d felt was perfection the night before is a complete failure:

·       Its body is blue instead of gray

·       Its ears are orange instead of pink

·       Its front paws are like a monkey’s

·       It has long ears like a rabbit

·       It has big feet like a kangaroo

·       It has no tail

Its tail is not the only thing missing. There is something in the figurine’s facial expression, a complete lack of timidity that is instinctive in real mice. Yet for all its failings, there is something distinctly mouse-like about the creature, and its expression so endearing that the ceramist decides not to destroy the evidence of his folly, but to keep it as a reminder next time he’s tempted to have “just one more” drink.

The curious creature does not remain with the ceramist for long, however, because that next night he comes to life—no longer ceramic, he becomes a flesh-and-blood mouse, the only one of his kind.

He is not sure what he is until he comes across other creatures who identify him as a Manx Mouse—because, like Manx Cats, he is missing a tail. That is another thing that Manxmouse learns soon after he begins his existence: he is fated to “belong” to the Manx Cat.

Most of the book is episodic, with each chapter taking Manxmouse to another adventure, including being taken on a flight by a hawk, ruining a fox hunt, becoming the mascot of a phobic elephant actress, being captured by a greedy pet store owner, and even meeting his own doppelgänger in Madame Tussaud’s Famous Waxworks Museum. Yet with every adventure he gets one step closer to meeting his Doom with the ominous Manx Cat….

My mom had read this book to me as a child, but it had been so long I only remembered the fear of the Manx Cat. Rereading it as an adult, I enjoyed it even more. Although each chapter seems a separate story, really each event coalesces at the end. This story is deceptively simple, camouflaging a very interesting theme of self-discovery versus fatalism, how some dangers are more frightening in perception and anticipation than in reality, as well as the idea that courage isn’t a complete lack of fears, but taking the initiative to face them.

Recommended Reading Age: 6 or older. This is a relatively harmless book, but because there are some rather dramatic moments I would not read it to toddlers or anything like that.

Parental Notes: As stated above, there are a few moments of peril, but no gruesome violence. The ceramist getting tipsy is treated like a foolish thing—and some might be put off by drunkenness being played for laughs—but by the end of the chapter he’s learned his lesson. There’s an Indian elephant trainer and an Arabian Sheik who come across stereotyped, but since almost all the characters are caricatures, this may not have been singling out a certain race.