Do Mice Eat Rice? Book

Have you ever seen an antelope eat cantaloupe? Or a stallion eat a scallion? Or a puffin eat a muffin?"

Do Mice Eat Rice? encourages children to consider what animals might or might not eat, and by extension, what other people in different parts of the world from different cultures eat that is very different from what we do. Children will learn about lots of new foods and animals in a fun and entertaining way.

Al Wight started writing books when he needed to help his son, Bill, learn to read. Later, as director of rehabilitation at a school for delinquent boys, he further developed his techniques for teaching basic and remedial reading. His books are based on rhyming, because, he says, children enjoy rhyming and research has shown a correlation between rhyming ability and learning to read.

Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz - Children's Literature

Wright is playing with words—their sounds and meanings—in rhymed couplets, as he contemplates why we and other creatures eat what we do. He assures us that mice eat rice: "I've seen them, twice." Goats naturally might eat oats, coats, and many other things. The questions continue: would parrots eat carrots, bees cheese, lizards gizzards, dogs frogs? All this word play gives Clarke the chance to go a bit wild as his colored drawings emphasize the absurd interactions, like anxious raccoons waiting to use a "busy" outhouse after eating prunes, or a moose eyeing a straw in a glass of juice. Most of the cartoon-y illustrations are reproduced in small size on the end-papers, so we are offered a delicious visual "Table of Contents," a display which gains strength by concentrating the zaniness to create new interrelationships. The notes explain some less known words. 2005, Tuttle Publishing, Ages 4 to 8.