
Reviews

Leo Lionni was a Dutch artist who grew up in Italy but fled to the United States at the outbreak of WWII. There he worked as a graphic artist and illustrator for Fortune Magazine. He returned to Italy in the 1960s where he began a new career as the writer and illustrator of children's literature. On of his earliest books is Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse. Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse is an old childhood favorite of mine. Alexander is a mouse who lives in the wall of a home that has a little girl. One of her favorite toys is a wind up mouse named Willy. Alexander and Willy strike up a friendship that is slowly tainted by Alexander's jealousy over Willy's popularity. In the end though Alexander comes to rescue of Willy. For the choice of a wind-up mouse and for the theme of the transformational powers of love, I am reminded of Russell Hoban's novel The Mouse and His Child. Lionni's book is a nice introduction to the much longer children's novel. Leo Lionni's illustrations are similar to Eric Carl's. My children also have A Color of His Own, a book I'm surprised I haven't reviewed on this blog.