In author/illustrator Fiona Ross's No More Mr. Mice Guy--a rollicking twist on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde--a mischievous mouse with insatiable cravings causes chaos.
"Late at night, if you hear a knock at the door, it's best not to answer." A "Jekyll Speedy Deliveries" van drops a package at Grandma and Squeak's door. Grandma, a purple-haired, older white adult, opens the gift: "You've won another competition, Squeak!" The prize, however, is a violently green, "wobbly jelly dessert" stuffed with eyeballs, bones, and worms. Grandma throws it away. But Squeak, a bipedal blue mouse in a red polka-dot bowtie, is unable to resist jumping into the garbage to taste his "icky, sticky, slimy prize." Squeak "grunt[s] and growl[s]... burp[s] and slurp[s]" and grows until he becomes "a massive, messy monster mouse."
Ross (Chilly Milly Moo) strategically reinforces the Squeak/Hyde dichotomy through the color and form of her creepy yet charming illustrations. Grandma and Squeak's surroundings are light-filled, while Hyde's wild rampages are depicted in black and fluorescent green. Panels are used to reflect Squeak's change from mouse to monster: though characters and elements regularly break out of their borders, orderly, rectangular frames surround Grandma and Squeak while Hyde's borders are inconsistent and jagged. Ross includes visual humor on every page, such as monstrous Hyde's oversize tongue lolling during transformation or fluorescent green slime covering every surface, including Squeak's nose. This story is a perfect read-aloud for spooky season, but little readers are likely to giggle at Squeak's hilarious cycles of mayhem and slimy burps year-round. --Cristina Iannarino, children's book buyer, Books on the Square, Providence, R.I.