Seven Blind Mice (1992)

"Teacher's Helper" Gr 1, Aug/Sept 2003

Seven Blind Mice is a really clever book, and my son enjoyed trying to solve the mystery along with the mice.

Despite being blind, the mice choose to brave the unknown in order to determine what they've stumbled across. The mice all come back with different theories, but that's because each mouse only examined one part of the object. When the final mouse leaves to look for himself, he examines the thing as a whole.

The mice were not able to discern what it was by only exploring pieces; they had to put all of those pieces together to see the bigger picture. I thought this was wonderfully written, and loved listening to my son's theories as each mouse came back with a different answer.

Originally posted at Do You Dog-ear? on September 27, 2018 ( )

Seven blind mice find Something new and curious at their pond. On each day of the week the mouse go out one by one to try to come to a conclusion as to what the Something could be. Each come back with their own idea. Finally, on the seventh day the White mouse decides to take his time and scurries up and down, across and over the Something and concludes that all of the other mouse were correct but they were only "seeing" a part of the whole. It was all of the things they described, such as a pillar, a cliff, and a rope but all together they make an elephant! This delightful tale teaches children to look at the whole before coming to a final conclusion. ( )

This is a very interesting story about looking at a big picture instead of each facet separately. The book ends with “knowing in part make a fine tale, but wisdom comes from seeing the whole”. The story starts with 7 blind mice trying to figure out what shows up at the pond. They judge and guess by textures and shapes, and each mouse has its own idea. One thinks it’s a snake, another thinks it’s a spear, another one - that it’s a rope. Only the last mouse has an epiphany that it is an elephant! A very entertaining story that teaches an all-time moral. Kids picked that one to read because the background is black and characters are brightly colored. Loved it. ( )

A delightful version of the mice who are trying to idenify an unknown object. Children will squirm to tell everyone what it is, and laugh when the mice get it too. ( )