Mouse Paint

Yet another picture book fresh and clever enough to charm adults. Three white mice experiment with paint in this delightful book with an unexpected ending. Highly recommended.

One day three white mice discover three jars of paint--red, blue, and yellow. Both parents and children alike will appreciate this lighthearted presentation of a lesson in color. “Walsh’s cut-paper collage illustrations have bold colors and just the right simplicity for the storyline. A real charmer that’s great fun as well as informative.”--School Library Journal

Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh follows three white mice who discover the world of color and mixing colors. One day the three white mice discover three jars of paint: red, blue, and yellow. As the mice each climb into a jar of paint and emerge, they leave puddles of paint. Since the puddles looked fun, each mouse picks a color different from that they crawled into and dance in the puddles. By mixing colors they create new colors: orange, green and purple. They wash off the sticky paint and then paint much of the white page different colors, leaving some white because of the cat.

The use of a bold font, surrounded by white, and repetition make this a good choice for beginning readers. The simplicity of the text and opportunities for show more prediction are pluses.

Walsh’s cut-paper collage illustrations feature bold colors that contrast with the white background. The use of primary colors to produce secondary colors makes this a strong concept book. My favorite images include the cover, the mice hiding from the cat, mice climbing into and emerging from paint jars, each mouse dancing and creating a secondary color, the mice washing themselves, and the final image.

This is one of my favorite preschool read-alouds which I have often used in storytimes. It could be used with a color mixing activity as a concrete concept to extend the story. I love how the white mice use the white paper to hide from the cat, and when they use the cat's bowl for their bath. This is highly recommended for school and public library collections. For ages 1 to 6, colors, science, experimentation, prediction, mice, adventure, cats, art, read-aloud, and fans of Ellen Stoll Walsh. show less

This is a fun book for children to read and learn about the different colors and how we can mix colors to make a new color. The story starts off with three white mice who hang out on a piece of white paper so that the cat cannot see them. One day they find three jars of paint and while the cat is sleeping they decide to play in the paint. They accidently mix some of the colors and realize that two different colors can make a whole new color! I like this book because it would be a great book to use in the classroom to teach children about different colors. This book would be great for grades 1-3.

Cute, but all three mice are male. Unless you work hard to find books in which all the characters are female then this is just one more book that contributes to imprinting "default male" in children's minds. So recommended only with that caution.

Cute, but all three mice are male. Unless you work hard to find books in which all the characters are female then this is just one more book that contributes to imprinting "default male" in children's minds. So recommended only with that caution.

Annotation: Three white mice dip themselves in mouse painting and learn how to mix colors.

Review:
This board book introduces the primary colors and secondary colors through a group of playful white mice. They see a red, yellow and blue pot of paint and each dip themselves into a color. Next they dance in puddles, mixing red and yellow to make orange, etc. It is a useful book for introducing colors and color theory and would be great a part of an activity. I think this book makes a better first reader or picture book than a board book. I can’t see infants and toddlers having too much fun with the book for the drawings are colorful and cute, but not too exciting. Besides the mixing of paint nothing much happens, which is all right, but show more it could have been better if the cat had gotten into the mix. This book is appropriate for children ages 2-6.

Other Reviews: There were no other reviews I could access. Yet on the back cover one can see that his book has been noted by several children’s literature review magazines as being a special selection as there is a list of the books accolades. Publisher’s Weekly chose it as a best book of the year. I suspect that this book was not originally created in board book format and feel as a board book it misses the mark for the very young. show less