Red House, Tree House, Little Bitty Brown Mouse

by Jane Godwin, Blanca Gómez (Illustrator)

A bit Each Peach Pear Plum, a bit Go, Dog, Go!, this read-aloud joy is deceptively simple yet packed with delights for the very young--a preschool standout deserving of modern-classic status.

A little mouse makes her way around the world, and invites preschoolers along as she sets out: Red house / Blue house / Green house / Tree house! / See the tiny mouse in her little brown house? Seamless, simple, and inspiring, the rhyming story abounds in concepts for the very young, with a particular focus on colors, and a delightful search-and-find element on every spread--the intrepid mouse herself!

Genres: Picture Books, Storytime, Childrens, Animals, Counting, Fiction, Spanish Literature

40 pages, Hardcover

Published August 27, 2019

About the author

Jane Godwin is the Publisher, Books for Children and Young Adults, at Penguin Books Australia. She is also a highly acclaimed author of many books for children. Her work is published internationally and she has received many commendations. The Family Tree won the 2000 Queensland Premier's Award (Children's Books); Sebby, Stee, the Garbos and Me was shortlisted for the 1999 New South Wales State Literary Award (Patricia Wrightson Prize) and was a YABBA finalist; and The True Story of Mary was shortlisted for the 2006 CBCA Book of the Year Awards, Younger Readers. In 2009 her picture book with illustrator Anna Walker, Little Cat and the Big Red Bus, was a notable book in the CBCA Awards and was also shortlisted for the Speech Pathology Australia Awards, Lower Primary division. Jane's most recent novel is Falling From Grace, and her most recent picture book is All Through the Year, illustrated by Anna Walker, due for publication in October 2010.

Jane lives in Melbourne with her family. Her hobbies seem to have fallen by the wayside a little since she has taken on the role of publisher, but from what she remembers, they were playing tennis, walking, reading (things other than manuscripts), doing cryptic crosswords, talking about the need to do gardening (and sometimes even doing it), cooking, playing piano, spending time with friends and mucking around with family which consists of partner Michael and two adolescents, Wil (19) and Lizzie (17). She still manages the cryptic crosswords, friends and family.

Jane also enjoys working creatively with school students, encouraging them to develop confidence in their own creativity, ideas and abilities.

Reviews

[Ms. B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Future board book? Older siblings who are beginning to read will love sharing this with younger siblings.

[Dest · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this can be read at least two ways:

1. As a read-aloud for a group of kids, I'd emphasize colors, counting, and answering the simple questions ("Shoes go on your feet. What goes on your head?"). The text is simple and the illustrations are clear and bright. This could be a great story time selection!

2. For an individual preschooler, this is an easy seek-and-find to pore over. The little bitty mouse is on every page and they can match the endpaper patches to the illustrations. Also, there are lots of connections to make between the final illustration of the interior of mouse's house and all of the previous scenes. How fun!

The rhyming text is really fun to read aloud. I was also a big fan of the illustrator's previous work in One Family.

One last thing: I don't think I've ever seen sun-showers depicted in a picture book. The train scene has simultaneous sun and rain. And there's a scene of a girl looking out at a window at a "sunny rainy day." This made me google sun-showers and find all the strange things people around the world call the phenomenon.

[Joella · Rating 5 out of 5]

You guys! This is a fun color-concept book! I really can't wait until we use it in story time so I can see how the kiddos respond. It isn't one of the boring books that has a list of colors and pictures of items in that color. It is actually a story that has a lot of colors listed. Beautiful book! Seriously!

[Dani]

I NEED this for storytime

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inventive and endlessly fascinating, especially for young children.

[Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't wait to read this in story time.

[Nikola Leighton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finding the mouse was fun.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This interactive picture book invites young readers to search for different things within the illustrations.

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh to be a little bitty brown mouse in a treehouse with a swing. So fun to read aloud, almost makes me want to sing.

(I hate myself)

[Sarah Alley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sweet book that my toddler loved. Darling illustrations with colors to identify, as well as cute rhyming words.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a cute book. There is a brown mouse to find on every page.

[Tasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Told in simple rhymes, this book invites the youngest children to explore its pages and engage with the questions asked inside. The book begins with houses, including a little tree house for the tiny mouse. Colors are explored and then there is counting on the next page combined with more colors. The book takes readers on a bus, into the ocean, on all sorts of transportation, and asks engaging questions of the reader along the way. The book ends by inviting readers to look for the mouse hiding in every illustration.

This picture book’s jaunty rhymes are reminiscent of classic children’s books like Go Dog Go! The way that children are invited to engage with the book is wonderful and will help parents new to sharing books with children understand the sorts of questions that can be asked about the images in any picture book. Gomez’s illustrations are full of pure and bright colors that leap from the page, glowing with red, green, blue, orange and pink. The people on the pages are diverse and the urban setting where most of the book takes place is busy and friendly.

Engaging and fun, this book is best shared with only a few children so their perspectives can be heard. Appropriate for ages 1-3.

[Katrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tiny brown mouse leads young readers through this cheerful work by Godwin and illustrated by Blanca Gomez. Catchy rhyming text whisks the reader through a variety of ordinary and not-so-ordinary scenes, brightly executed in both close-up detail and in spreads taking a birds-eye view. In the colorful world of the story, pigs and cats ride trains next to humans of every hue, and ice cream cones are almost as big and round as a little girl's smiling face. Gomez plays with color, shape, and perspective to draw young readers in to discover each enchanting detail. This simple, charming book about colors manages to be so much more than a typical concept book, and is perfect for story times and one-on-one sharing. Highly recommended.

[Andrés · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so excellent for ages 2-4. The illustrations are so cheerful, and the tale is cohesive, with Mouse's Spartan room at the beginning, then a room adorned with postage stamps and other souvenirs of the mouse's adventures throughout the book. Little Bitty Brown Mouse goes through the neighborhood, garden, kitchen, ocean, ice cream shop, doggie hotel, train, boats, hot air balloon and more. Along the way, the reader can practice numbers, colors, emotions, and patterns. The discerning reader will search to find Mouse on each page as well as many other wonderful details. For extra credit, the reader could try to match some of the images on the last page with the adventures earlier in the book.

[Rose Rosetree · Rating 5 out of 5]

This nonfiction book for toddlers can likely help them to learn how to read. Since rhymes in a book tend to help children make important distinctions related to sound and language.

Mostly though, this is a book of naming: colors, animals, vehicles, and more.

INTERACTIVE, WHETHER YOU LIKE THAT OR NOT

Interactive-style challenges to readers are not my favorite thing to find in picture books. (To put it mildly.) At least these are a gentle version, compared to other titles I've seen. Nearly every double page spread contains a challenge to readers, such as:

"Can you count the petals
in the garden bed?"

FIVE STARS for this cheerful, sweetly educational picture book.

[Abby Johnson]

Bouncy rhyming text and brilliantly colorful illustrations accompany a little bitty mouse as she travels around the world to many different places. The text and illustrations are super whimsical, there's not a lot of plot or continuity, but it's fun text to read and kids will get a huge kick out of finding the tiny mouse on every page.

I have cherished memories of reading Richard Scarry books with my family and looking for Lowly Worm and Goldbug before bedtime. This book is adorable fun and sure to be a bedtime choice for many families.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may be my new favorite! I love the rhyming and I know a lot of my storytime kids will love that part as well!! This is a great book for a group or a one on one read because during the story the children can point to objects in the photo. For example, little brown mouse is in every photo, but you have to look closely! I also like that the book asks readers questions throughout, which helps them stay engaged as well. The illustrations are extremely vibrant yet clean and welcoming! I can't wait to recommend this one to EVERYONE!

[Pita-eater · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is getting 5 stars for the clever illustrations. Simple rhyming text is accompanied by colorful illustrations of a little traveling mouse. The mouse collects items from each trip and the reader sees them all arranged in her tree house at the end. Badges on the endpapers also have small clues to each of the scenes. Young readers will enjoy finding the little bitty brown mouse and her suitcase on every page and then going back through the book to find which scenes she has collected items from. Very satisfying.

[Amber Ketterman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book for language development. My son ABSOLUTELY loved this book! For almost two years this was his favorite book and he had me read it every night during bedtime story time. He loved talking about the pictures and looking at all the bright colorful images. This is an excellent book for building vocabulary and introducing book discussions to a YOUNG reader. I emphasize young because my son enjoyed this most from about 10 months old to about 3 years of age. However, the Lexile level for this book is 480 with a grade band of 2-3.

[Arianna Geordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book because it would be perfect to read to little children and that is who I want to teach someday, around pre-school to 2nd graders. This book is very colorful and the pictures are amazing in it, the way the little mouse takes the children around the city and the world is perfect. It could inspire some children to get out more with their parents and to not be as shy as they might be. This is a great book.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This picture book is cute, Cute, CUTE! I looked it over the other day and thought it would be perfect for story time. It was! The children had so much fun following along with the text and the brilliant illustrations. The pictures allowed them to infer what I would read next. They searched for that "Little Bitty Brown Mouse" in each picture!

I love to share books just like this one! We had such fun this morning.

[RJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love a simple picture book that asks questions! ("Do you see the brown mouse?" "Can you count the petals?" "Which ice cream cone would you like to eat?") The rhyming structure is a little unusual, but in a way the feels good to say out loud and I think will be engaging to little ears. Future storytime pick for sure, though some of the details (the mouse, for example) might be a liiiittle too small to spot from afar in a group setting.

[Liz Weimer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Modern Fantasy
Early Primary (K-1)

I love the art in this book. There is so much color and so many things to look at on every single page, as well as a mouse you have to find somewhere on each page. This book is very versatile, as it could be used to show objects, colors, rhyming, rhythm and music, and so much more! I loved reading this book and it is one I think would be a great read-aloud in the classroom.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely recommended. A good rhythm, some questions that allow interaction but not too much so that you ruin the flow, cute illustrations, and a little mouse to keep an eye out for on every page. Might be tricky for storytime depending on the size of your crowd and how much they like to shove their faces into the illustrations, but I think it would work out.

[Jana · Rating 4 out of 5]

With bouncy, rhyming text and boldly colored illustrations, this primary concept book will definitely become a favorite of young readers. Young readers are invited to count, pick favorite colors, and look for the little brown mouse on every page. This is a fun one to share with little children as a read aloud.

[Yentl ♥ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a cute book :D Little Mouse goes on many adventures and does a little bit of everything. By the end of the book, Little Mouse has many souvenirs and pictures of all her travels to decorate her house. There are vibrant colors and great illustrations throughout. Finding her on each page is super fun.

[Aolund · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect for reading aloud, with lots of invitations for listeners to participate in counting, naming colors, etc. An episodic book full of scenes from everyday life, as well as more imaginative pictures of the deep sea, all tied together with a row of houses and the eponymous mouse's tree house.

Themes: Home, Colors, Big and Small
Age Range: 2-5

[Rebecca Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this was a really unique book. I love how it encourages kids to rhyme long and finish the sentence but also lends itself easily to dialogic reading by asking questions of the reader. The illustrations are absolutely harming. I can't wait to try this out for a summer family storytime with a multitude of ages.

[Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Age: Toddler-Preschool
Concepts: Colors, counting, sizes and differences

A fun recap for a preschooler about all the concepts that they have been learning. Although there is no actual story told through the words, the rhyming text, questions for the listener, and spotting a mouse throughout were excellent ways to keep my preschooler engaged. Simple and effective.

[Layna Pasiuk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very cute children book that helped learn colors. There were very few words on each page and the picture were quite simple, but it serves its purpose for young readers, and after they read a page they are able to point out the colors in the pictures just like the pages are asking for. There was also some rhyming throughout the book that made it very appealing to read.