The Lion and the Mouse

Pinkney, J. (2009). The Lion and the Mouse.  New York: Little Brown & Co. Books for Young Children.

The timid little mouse is exploring the savannah of Africa.  The mouse and a very large lion are the main characters of this book.  The very small field mouse has many enemies wanting to eat him but his largest enemy is the lion.  At a strategic point in the story, the lion catches the mouse but decides he is not very hungry.  On impulse the lion sets the mouse free.  Later on the lion is snared in a net and cannot get free.  The small mouse comes to his rescue and chews the ropes on the net allowing the lion to fall to the ground free yet again.  The result of his actions earlier, the lion was spared capture by the little tiny morsel that would not have sated his voracious appetite.
Jerry Pinkney has been one of my favorite illustrators for a very long time.  Caldecott books are widely known for their excellence in illustrations and the book rightly deserves the award.  The book was very cleverly and carefully drawn to show each frame of the story sequentially, tracing the antics of the mouse up to and including his capture by the lion and continues through the "pay it forward" by the mouse.