Little Mouse’s Sweet Treat by Shana Hollowell

Little Mouse’s Sweet Treat by Shana Hollowell
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Children’s (0 – 6 y.o.), Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Little Mouse goes on an adventure in search of something sweet. He meets friends along the way that share their preferred treats with him, but none are quite right for Little Mouse. He is disappointed until he arrives home and realizes his Mommy baked the sweetest treat just for him – cookies!

Everyone needs a treat sometimes.

I loved how tailored this was to its audience. It used repetition and gentle rhymes to give little ones clues about what would happen next as it talked about something that most children are excited to enjoy now and again: sweets! Picture books work best when they pay such close attention to what kids like in my opinion. When they can make good guesses about what might happen next, it’s easy to keep them interested in turning to the next page.

There were a couple of places where the rhymes felt a little off-balance to me due to some pages having longer sentences than others did. While I didn’t expect them all to be exactly equal, it would have flowed better if they had been more similar to each other. This is a minor criticism of something I otherwise thought was adorable.

Not everyone likes the same things, of course, so one of the exciting moments happened as the little mouse realized that his idea of the perfect dessert didn’t necessarily match what others were looking for. It makes me happy to read books that encourage readers of all ages to think about the world from other points of view and treat their friends and neighbors with kindness and respect. The more examples we have on how to do this, the better.

Little Mouse’s Sweet Treat couldn’t have been a better introduction to Ms. Hollowell’s work for me. What a fun adventure it was. I look forward to reading more from her in the future.