The Mouse That Roared

Reeny is a fifth grader now. But when she was in my kindergarten, she fell in love with a mouse named Frederick and made us think about him and his creator, as if nothing else mattered. From Frederick, we went on to Tico and the Golden Wings, Cornelius, and Swimmy, until we had read every Leo Lionni book in our school library--14 in all.

Though reading them was never enough. We talked them through and acted them out; we copied them onto huge posters that encircled the room and spilled out into the hallway. Reeny called it "the time of Leo Lionni." But looking back, it seems like a dream.

"What will happen to Leo Lionni when we're gone?" the children had anguished, surveying their extravagant paintings on the walls. Our room had become a private sanctuary of Leo Lionni characters and landscapes known, we thought, only unto us. "Once upon a time, uh-huh uh-huh, there was a mouse named Frederick, uh-huh uh-huh," Reeny had chanted, crayoning the perfect shade of brown for Frederick and for herself. "This brown mouse I'm drawing is Frederick," she told us every day, and, "This brown girl that's dancing is me," she trilled on, taping the figures to the wall.

Remembering the events of that incredible year, my last in the classroom, it's hard to believe that five years have passed. "I'm so glad you called, Reeny. You were the first one I thought of when I read about Leo Lionni."

"And then you thought about Tico, right?" Who but Reeny would remember my disappointment in the fate of Leo Lionni's bird with the golden wings? How I longed for Tico to keep his remarkable gift instead of replacing each feather of gold with a black one to placate his jealous flock. Five-year-old Reeny understood my lament, even as she argued that Tico must conform or lose his friends.

Were Tico's friends just being mean? we had wondered. Or was it Tico who was selfish? Why didn't Frederick have to conform? He let his companions do the work while he dreamed of words and colors. And what of Cornelius? Was he simply a show-off or someone of exceptional vision?

Leo Lionni's animal fables pierced to the heart of what concerned us most: What is mine to decide and what decisions belong to the group? Why do fairness and friendship intersect in such puzzling ways, until we can hardly tell which course of action will make us happy? Is conformity required in order to be loved by the flock?

But do young children really ponder such matters? Uh-huh uh-huh, we discovered, indulging ourselves in the layers of meaning on every page. We could not simply read about Frederick and Tico and Swimmy and Cornelius; had this been the limit of our involvement, their secrets and ours would not have been uncovered. Leo Lionni understood this. "Study my illustrations and act out the words," he seemed to be telling us. "Carve a path into each picture and into every character. Only then will my dilemmas become yours and yours become mine."

A quick perusal was never enough for us. We began with Frederick, reading the book over and over, acting out the story of a poet mouse and his somewhat ambivalent community, rehearsing their joys and sorrows until we could explain something new about ourselves to one another.

And, a week or so later, when we felt we could leave Frederick, the process would begin again with another book and then another. Before we knew what was happening, a whole year with Leo Lionni was a necessity, since every previous character had to comment on the doings of all those to come. We could no sooner put Leo Lionni away than dismiss a friend whom we were just beginning to understand.

A college professor of mine felt the same way about Plato, that a year was barely time enough to get to know the Socratic dialogues. If only we had been able to act them out, we might have reached the point where the chanting begins: Once upon a time, uh-huh uh-huh, there was a man named Socrates, uh-huh uh-huh.

Reeny breaks into my reverie. "I told Mrs. Ruperal-Sen about Leo Lionni. Did you know she's still the teacher in our old room? And guess what? Some of our posters are hanging up. She even put them in frames. Tico is there and Frederick and...." Reeny begins the delicious repetition of names, something we often did at the lunch table, tapping out the rhythm. "Fre-da-rick is number one, Tee-ee-co is number two, Swi-a-mee is number three...." Reeny pauses and takes a deep breath. "I miss Leo Lionni," she whispers. "I miss us with Leo Lionni."

"So do I." My eyes blink away the tears. "He was very old, you know. He'd been sick for a long time." There is no response. "Are you okay, Reeny?"

"I was just thinking," she says. "Frederick won't know about Leo Lionni. Of course not. The words and pictures, that's what he knows. That brown color, do you remember? And Frederick's eyes, the way they looked at you? And those stones, so soft and warm."

Her voice is soft and warm. I had forgotten how quickly Reeny was able to arrive at a new place and bring me with her. "How about Tico?" I say. "Has Tico ever forgiven Mr. Lionni for making him give away his golden feathers?"

"Leo Lionni," Reeny hastens to correct me. He was, of course, always Leo Lionni. No other name would do. "Here's what I think about Tico," Reeny tells me, as seriously as when she was in kindergarten. "Leo Lionni really did change his mind about Tico. That's why he wrote Cornelius. He lets him be completely different from the other crocodiles, standing up straight and all, even if they don't like it and are mean to him."

"Okay, but Tico is still in a bind."

"No wait!" she shouts into the phone. "No, see, like Cornelius gets hold of Tico and tells him not to be scared of what people say. You know, like, keep your golden wings, man, if that's what you want."

The Leo Lionni magic is still here. I am tempted to reveal to her that I wrote a book about the year of Leo Lionni, but decide against it. Let Reeny remember Leo Lionni in her own way. Let his characters continue to talk to her and to each other whenever she comes across them. They will always have something new to say to Reeny, her classmates, and to me. When you are lucky enough to spend a year getting to know certain people, they remain part of you forever.

However, I do tell Reeny one thing about Leo Lionni that makes her whoop with joy. "The year after our kindergarten class I met Leo Lionni."

"Really?" Reeny asks. "You talked to him, actually?"

"I told him that we were always wondering, in our class, which character he is, of all those he created. I said that most of us figured him to be Frederick, but a few decided he must be Cornelius."

"Did he tell you?" She is holding her breath, almost afraid to speak.

"I visited him in New York. He reached into a pile of his paperbacks and pulled out a copy of Swimmy. Then he took a brown crayon and circled Swimmy, a big circle with a line going down the page. At the end of the line he printed 'ME.' That's who Leo Lionni is."

"None of us thought Swimmy," Reeny declares. "But we should have, don't you see? Because we were like those other little fish. I mean, we surrounded him all the time. He took us everywhere with him. He made us like the big, big fish--together and stronger." She gives a triumphant laugh. "Yes, of course, he hasta be Swimmy."

Vivian Gussin Paley is the author of many books, including The Girl with the Brown Crayon (Harvard, 1996), which tells the story of the year her kindergarten class spent with Leo Lionni's books. Lionni died, at age 89, in October 1999. His illustrations appear with the permission of his publisher, Knopf.