This is a sweet story about friendship but also about being happy with what you have. Alexander sacrifices his own interests to help a friend. Suddenly Willy’s life doesn’t seem so grand. But like all toys, children lose interest in them. And although Willy cannot move without being wound, Alexander sees that a wind-up mouse’s life would offer him love. Like many of the mouse books I’ve read, Alexander is tired of being hated. The story, like a Prince and the Pauper tale, is based on the idea of wanting to be something you are not. Alexander is crestfallen until he returns home and finds a familiar friend in his hole in the wall. When he goes to find the box, it is empty. He rushes to the lizard and asks to change Willy into a real mouse. The family is getting rid of some toys including the wind-up mouse. When he can’t find the pebble, he returns to Willy who has been thrown into a box. The lizard tells Alexander he will need a purple pebble to work the magic. One day Willy tells him of a magic lizard that can turn one creature into another. Alexander wants to be a wind-up mouse and be loved too. She takes Willy everywhere and loves him. Then he meets Willy, a wind-up mouse who is a favorite toy of the girl in the house. The people in the house chase him away every time they see him and he is sad that no one seems to love him. He scrounges for food and lives in a hole in the wall. The Caldecott honor book, Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse is a perfect example of these fantastic spreads.Īlexander is a regular mouse. Lionni is a master of taking torn scraps and making memorable scenes. From a felt mouse to a wallpaper background, there is a variety of colors and textures that combine beautifully. I am constantly drawn into the images to see the textures and types of papers that he uses in his artwork. But Lionni’s collage work was and still is some of the more inventive and beautiful illustrations out there.
Never seen them as anything more than just illustrations. Before that, I had always loved the images in my books but never really seen the full beauty of them. The first time I ever really recognized a children’s book illustration as art was when looking at Leo Lionni’s work.
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