If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
by Laura Numeroff
with illustrations by Felicia Bond
First things first. Full disclaimer - this was one of my favorite books when I was a budding savant who was already reading at the age of 4 months - so the ratings for this one might be a tad bit prejudicial. This being said, I will try to keep my review as "fair and balanced" as I can.
Let's begin with the opening page, which shows a jean-clad young boy of ambiguous age holding out what one can only assume is a cookie of some sort (probably name brand and not the cheap generic knock-offs). I say this because the house behind the child looks very suburban, with a big, fenced in yard, and a nicely paved walkway to the front door. If I had to guess, it's probably some type of Pepperidge Farm cookie, and those things are like a dollar a cookie! Unfortunately, Numeroff and Bond have already begun to narrow down the target audience by choosing what appears to be an upper middle class, caucasian protagonist.
Across the page from the young boy is a mouse, which based on size, has either eaten his fair share of cookies recently, or is actually in fact a rat. Strangely, the mouse has on overalls and what appears to be a tiny little mouse/rat backpack and is walking on two legs. In the rodent world, this character is clearly at the upper echelon of the socio-economic strata (like 99.9999999%) so one can already assume that not many rodents will be able to identify or relate to this story.
Now to the writing. The first page opens with the phrase which is the book's namesake, "If you give a mouse a cookie." This is a stroke of genius by Numeroff. By leaving the phrase open-ended, she leaves the door to our mind's eye wide open. This is only enhanced by the uniqueness and profundity of the thought. "If you give a mouse a cookie?" Hmmmm. I have no freaking idea! The possibilities are endless! Especially if the mouse is wearing overalls and a small backpack! I can't wait to turn the page and found out what's going to happen next! Boom. Just like that, you are sucked in. Perhaps forgetting all about the esoteric nature of the initial page's illustrations.
Turn the page. We have the answer! "He's going to ask for a glass of milk." Great. Now the mouse can talk. Way to go Numeroff, you just lost the remaining .00000001 percent of your rodent audience. The illustrations on this page are not much better, showing the overall-wearing, backpacking mouse/rat sprinting up the paved walkway, cookie in-hand, and a terrified looking boy who appears to be trying to get inside and shut the door in the mouse/rat's face. I imagine, since this is a talking rodent, that his voice sounds something like the cookie monster's voice. "COOKIES!!! COOKIES!!!" Now we have a cookie-monster mouse/rat and that is just downright scary.
On the next page it appears as if the mouse/rat cookie monster has forced his way into the peaceful suburban home and he is now slurping down some Horizon 1% Organic as the boy holds the glass, looking terribly sad for some reason. Here at the top of the page, Numeroff sucks her audience right back into the already thickening plot with another open-ended phrase - "When you give him the milk..." Oh man! I gotta know. Turn that page son!
We have our answer. "He'll probably ask for a straw." Well that's boring. Of all the things he could have asked for, the talking rodent asks for a straw?! Meanwhile the illustrations show the boy rummaging through the cabinets, trying desperately to find a straw before the mouse/rat smacks him in the face with a Pepperidge Farm Chocolate Chunk. As we move on to the next page, we see the increasingly demanding rodent has gotten what he wants yet again, but he's not done yet. Now, he's finished with the milk and he wants a napkin! I am disappointed, but I can see what Numeroff is doing here. She is providing a subtle yet damning commentary on the entitlement of Generation X. This explains the demanding nature of the mouse/rat and why he seems to never question the fact that he isn't deserving of any of the things that he is seeking. At this point, the parallels between the "helicopter parents" of Generation X and Y and the young boy are becoming increasingly clear. It doesn't look like this is going to stop until the mouse moves into the young boy's basement and starts bleeding him dry.
Over the next few pages, Numeroff appears to be telling us that the demanding personality of the mouse/rat isn't entirely his fault. After a gluttonous binge, the first thing the rodent does is demand to look into the mirror so that he can make sure he doesn't have a milk mustache! Wow. What arrogance! Then, as he looks into the mirror, he also notices that he doesn't like the way his hair looks, so he demands that the boy get him a pair of scissors so that he can "give himself a trim." It's clear at this point that the coddling of the mouse/rat when he was growing up likely made him a raging narcissist. True, the personality pathology is grim, but it would be trite to place all the blame on the mouse/rat himself, and kudos to the author for revealing something redeemable in a seemingly unlovable character.
Here is where the book gets very interesting. As you turn to the next page, you see a frenzied mouse/rat standing on a sink in a cloud of mouse/rat hair, as a dejected and disappointed boy stands behind him, looking at the mess that he knows he will be responsible for cleaning up. It seems all to predictable now. This overall-clad, backpacking, narcissistic, mouse/rat is going to mooch the young boy into a coma of emptiness and self-pity. Then, when you least expect it, something amazing happens. The rodent sees the mess he has made, and decides that he himself should be the one to clean it!! I imagine the mouse/rat looking down as he and the young boy wallow in the pile of his own filth, and a light bulb turns on in the rodent's slightly larger than pea-sized brain. "Geez, I've been a real jerk! That boy looks so sad. All he wanted to do was give me what I want, and I was never satisfied! It's time to change. I'm turning over a new leaf. I'm going to start doing things for myself, and I'm going to start right now!"
So the mouse/rat activates his "undoing" defense mechanism and begins to sweep up his mess. As he sweeps up the hair in the bathroom, he probably begins to feel even worse about how selfish he has been, so he thinks to himself, "this is not enough, I need to sweep the whole house!" He then appears by the illustrations to morph into the Tasmanian Devil and as piles of neatly swept dirt and grime begin to appear throughout the house, the boy peers around a corner in shear disbelief. I am sure what is happening is unfathomable to him, as he has been at the beck and call of the rodent since they first met. Perhaps this is finally it. Perhaps this is the moment when the mouse/rat finally realizes what an selfish a-hole he is. Things certainly seem to be pointing in that direction as the rodent continues his "undoing" by washing the floors of the house as well. As one can imagine, all of this work for such a small creature is surely exhausting, and this point is dually brought home to the reader by Numeroff and Bond as the next page shows the soggy mouse passed out over a can of Ajax while Numeroff puts the rodent's fatigue into writing by saying "he'll probably want to take a nap."
Just as things seem to be going well, and the reader begins to hope that the mouse/rat has indeed made a permanent change for the better, the helicopter parent/young boy swoops into ruin things. A damning commentary indeed. The young boy, not unlike many parents of Generation X and Y, is so used to doing things for the mouse/rat, that at the first sign of independence, the young boy becomes extremely uncomfortable and leaps at the first opportunity to be "needed" by said rodent. The parallels here are astounding. Bravo to Numeroff for her subtle yet effective jab at these "coddlers." The boy then proceeds to "fix up a little box with a blanket and pillow" for the mouse/rat. The rodent, in his fatigued state, forgets his feelings of guilt at his selfishness, and slips right back into his narcissistic sense of entitlement. As he is lying there in his posh box-bed with a kerchief and pillow, the demanding devil returns. The cutely made bed is not enough. Nothing is ever enough. Now he wants the boy to read him a bed-time story. The young boy, who is overjoyed at this point to be "needed" again, is blinded by his temporary happiness and fails to see that he is going to end up right back where he was a few pages ago, dejected, exhausted, and at his wits end.
Over the next few pages we see the demands getting revved up again.
"I want to see the pictures in the book you are reading to me!"
"I now want to draw! Bring me paper and Crayons!"
"Look at my masterpiece! I should sign my name. Bring me a pen!"
"Get me some tape and hang this on the refrigerator!"
During this string of demands Bond does a phenomenal job slowly capturing the change in the young boy's affect. She beautifully illustrates the transition from blind, needed, joy of the helicopter parent to the inevitable disappointment, hopelessness, and pure exhaustion as the young boy appears to be running all over the house, acquiescing to the mouse/rat's demands. Meanwhile tellingly, cleaning up the dust piles and the cleaning supplies that the rodent failed to put away after his "light bulb moment."
As the narcissistic mouse/rat is gazing at his "masterpiece" hanging on the refrigerator, the book reaches new heights of genius. The mouse sees the refrigerator, realizes that he is thirsty, and demands a glass of milk! Brilliant! Numeroff and Bond have brought us full circle, an obvious attempt to give the average reader insight as to what it must feel like to be one of these two characters - the narcissistic mouse/rat caught in the cycle of his own selfishness, followed by attempts at undoing, only to return his selfish ways and come face-to-face with the cookie monster that he is; and the coddling helicopter parent who finds themselves exhausted by meeting every demand of their selfish and entitled child, only to feel disappointed at "not being needed" in a brief display of independence, and then to be cast right back into the hopeless and exhausting cycle of satisfying innumerable demands.
They then leave us with a powerful and foreshadowing statement that things aren't likely to get better anytime soon.
"And chances are if he asks for a glass of milk, he's going to want a cookie to go with it."
What a carefully crafted and well thought-out allegorical take on some of the major issues that are affecting our society today. I think most would agree that we now have the answer to the initial open-ended statement posed in the book. "If you give mouse a cookie, you are in for roller coaster of disappointment, joy, and hopelessness."
Beck gives this book 8/10 "dahs." He would have given it 10, but it's too damn long for an 11 month-old.
I give this book 10/10 points on my rating scale, mainly because the illustrations are awesome and the writing is not totally stupid. That, coupled with the fact that I remember loving this book as a child, is enough for a perfect score on this blog!
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for the next review Beck and I will be reading If I Were a Sheep by Anne Wilkinson.
Sincerely,
Gib and Beck
