Starred Review ALA Booklist (Thu Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2002)

Starred Review Fleming offers an engaging conceit executed in a marvelous medium. A hardworking mouse is building the alphabet: on each page the industrious rodent creates a letter using an activity beginning with that letter. Mouse dyes the D--a shimmery tie-dye effect; levels the L (using a pile of bricks and a carpenter's level), and quilts the Q. Most of these actions are related to construction or artwork, and each letter, usually much larger than the mouse, is sturdily indicative of itself. For instance, the W being welded is made of wrought iron lattice. Fleming has poured colored cotton fiber through hand-cut stencils to make her illustrations, which are thus bold in outline and shape and vivid with an almost incandescent coloring. Although this has the simplicity of many alphabet books, it also has momentum as the project moves forward, and ingenuity in its execution. The exhausted mouse's month of hard work is rewarded: the last page shows the completed alphabet. A handsome poster of the alphabet is included.

Horn Book (Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 2003)

Fleming's exuberant Mouse takes on the alphabet with all the industriousness of Martha Stewart and a lot more joyful abandon. Gluing G, measuring M, and welding W, Mouse builds letters on well-designed pages saturated with color. Each page is devoted to one letter and a different activity familiar to the alphabet-book crew. Fleming's paper-pulp illustrations are especially well suited to the topic.

Kirkus Reviews

The little mouse from Fleming's Lunch (1992) literally and alliteratively works his way through the alphabet. The emphasis is on process; rather than introducing appropriate objects for each letter of the alphabet, this cheery offering presents verbs: "Mouse airbrushes the A, / buttons the B, / carves the C, . . . " With the exception of A and Z, which occupy double-page spreads, each letter takes up one page, the happily industrious mouse leveling, measuring, and nailing his way along. Fleming's trademark pulp paintings glow, the brightly colored letters standing out against equally bright and uncluttered backgrounds. The text presents the letters subtly and effectively, making it a good bridge between the very beginning alphabet books and more sophisticated offerings. Most of the lettering is done in an uneven serif font reminiscent of typescript, but the letter being worked on appears in a clean sans-serif font, the lower-case exemplar at the beginning of its appropriate verb and the upper-case as the object. The cleanness of the sans-serif font nicely complements the in-process messiness of the illustrated letters. If some of the verbs stretch the concept (Mouse "judges the J" and, inevitably, "x-rays the X"), others are just plain inspired, as Mouse prunes the topiary P and then vacuums a purple V pattern on a very dirty rug. Here's an alphabet book that's certainly worth making room for. (Picture book. 3-6)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Mouse, the rambunctious rodent first seen in Fleming's <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Lunch, returns in this concept-book salute to hands-on (or, in this case, paws-on) creativity. Beginning at the beginning—the letter <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">A, of course—Mouse fashions letters by means of various arts and crafts. Fleming has embraced the broadest definition of "construction" to include such activities as sawing, gluing, buttoning, icing (as in a cake) and quilting. Young children will no doubt enjoy seeing Mouse scurry—sometimes humorously splattered with materials—from one letter to the next, although they may puzzle over a few of the scenes. A few of the entries strain to fit the overall theme—as when Mouse X-rays the <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">X, Yanks the <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Yand Judges the <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">J. The always playful, exuberant mood of Fleming's handmade-paper artwork, however, remains intact. Her broad range of dynamic, intense colors envelops readers with its sunny warmth. Ages 2-5. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Aug.)

School Library Journal

PreS-K-One very active mouse constructs an alphabet with 26 sturdy verbs. Several of them may be unfamiliar to the preschool set-airbrush, dye, judge, level, quilt, tile, weld, or X-ray-but the art, combined with a helpful adult, should make the meanings clear. The vibrant illustrations "were created by pouring colored cotton fiber through hand-cut stencils" and have appealing texture and intense color. Though the text is limited to verb/letter ("folds the F, glues the G," etc.), the art (A and Z have spreads) is the strength of this offering. Mouse, who first appeared in Fleming's Lunch (Holt, 1995), is an enthusiastic builder though a bit untidy. Novice students of the alphabet may be enticed into constructing their own alphabets and/or gathering their own set of verbs. A worthy addition to the sea of ABC books.-Jody McCoy, The Bush School, Seattle, WA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.