WARNING: If you are a parent of youngsters (boys especially) and read this book to them, the consequences may be costly and life-changing. He and you may want a pet mouse.

Beverly Cleary may be more known for her Ramona series these days, but the only child’s book I’ve read by her (and reread) happens to be 1965’s The Mouse And The Motorcycle. It was her first journey into fantasy that still has the knack of charming me as a more discerning adult.

It isn’t made clear that the boy, Keith, moving into the hotel room with Ralph the mouse and his family dreams this. It just takes off like it is really happening!


The Story


Keith and his parents are on vacation for the Fourth of July and his dad doesn’t want to drive in California traffic anymore, so they are compelled to stay in an old hotel that has seen better days. The boy thinks it’s wonderful having his own room and leaves his toy cars and a red motorcycle on the desk to go down for dinner. Soon an inquisitive, young mouse spies the beautiful cycle that looks so real and climbs up the telephone cord to the top of the desk.

When the mouse, Ralph by name, hops on and pushes it along with his feet, the phone clatters and paralyzes him into running off the desk into the metal waste can. He knows he’s a goner. The maid will toss him in the exterminator that he’s heard of. After eating the apple core the boy tossed in earlier, he sleeps, but Keith comes back and finally sees him.

What happens next is probably every child’s dream. The mouse speaks to him! It’s not a squeak, but actual, people words! Ralph is just as shocked that Keith can understand him and a close friendship begins that allows the mouse to ride the bike fast by just making the sound “pb-pb-b-b-b.” Ralph wonders why he hadn’t remembered that.

This begins Ralph’s obsession with the bike to his parent’s horror. He even ventures out in the hallway so he can zoom up and down it! Keith loves talking to him and letting him ride it at night, but trouble ensues when Ralph wants to see if he can outpower a vacuum cleaner and he crashes into a pillowcase in the laundry pile. He can only chew himself out and abandon the bike in the laundry room.

Much more daring fun develops when Keith becomes sick and nobody can find or buy an aspirin until morning. Ralph checks out all the rooms, except the one with the terrier that hates him, but is caught in a glass jar by charmed women and finally dropped out the window.

“Cunning paws indeed!” he thinks and navigates the tree within sight of owls.

I think you’ve gotten the idea that this Ralph turns out to be a brave, little hero in his family’s and Keith’s eyes. Somehow he manages to find and identify an aspirin on the floor and then cunningly plots out how to use the elevator (and the horrid dog) to bring the pill to his human friend. He has another human friend in the “sixty if he was a day” old bellboy who knows everything that goes on in the hotel.

If you’re wondering whether Keith sees his toy motorcycle again before he must leave or Ralph gets to ride it, you don’t know children’s fantasies! You and your child will certainly enjoy finding out how Ralph becomes responsible “much faster than a boy” to the envy of Keith. It’s a delight from beginning to end.


Tail-End Comments


I wanted a fun, children’s book about a motorcycle after my last review and this Cleary book sprang to mind. The 158 pages, complemented by whimsical, black and white pictures throughout, was a very fun read that I must have read as a child, but it seemed fresh and exciting to my eyes last night. I just fell in love with this screwy mouse in his biker’s helmet made of a squashed ping pong ball and tape or something.


Ralph has the biker’s attitude down pat:

Pb-pb-b-b-b. Ralph started the motorcycle again and rode around in the moonlight once more, faster and faster, until he was dizzy from circling, dizzy from excitement, dizzy with the joy of speed. Never mind the danger, never mind what his mother thought. This was living. This was what he wanted to do. On and on and on. Pp 47


The boy’s parents seemed typical, well-meaning parents and the mouse’s family was rather hilarious. What an imagination Cleary has! Ralph slept on shredded Kleenex and they all marveled over “room service” from Keith for the first time in their lives.

More than a family-friendly fantasy and comedy for children, it sends the right messages about how to grow up to be responsible, by being creative and caring enough to risk some danger. Of course there’s nothing frightening really in the story, but there is suspense and thrills that are guaranteed to be a hit with your child.

Only one old-fashioned word didn’t ring a bell in me (antimacassar), but the rest of the words should be pretty understandable for or at least explainable to a listening child. Words like pandemonium require at least a fourth grade reader and maybe “drip-drying” will have to be explained-this was written in 1965, after all. Color illustrations would be nicer.

Beverly Cleary has written Newberry Honor Books like Dear Mr. Henshaw, Ramona and Her Father and Ramona Quimby, Age 8. Other equally beloved characters are Henry Huggins, Ellen Tebbits and Otis Spofford. Ralph S. Mouse and Runaway Ralph would be great choices after enjoying The Mouse And The Motorcycle.


Thirteen chapters are included:

The New Guests
The Motorcycle
Trapped!
Keith
Adventure In The Night
A Peanut-Butter Sandwich (from “room service”)
The Vacuum Cleaner
A Family Reunion (Ralph’s relatives show up)
Ralph Takes Command
An Anxious Night
The Search (for the aspirin)
An Errand of Mercy (Ralph delivering medicine, whee whee!)
A Subject For A Composition (ahh, the inspiration for Keith’s fantasy?)


Highly recommended! Enjoy! I found my hardbound copy at the library, but your child will most likely want you to buy your paperback copy because it will become a fast favorite. Either that, dear reader, or a pet mouse. It’s your choice.

Now, any wild guesses what antimacassar means? It could be inferred from the text, but I’d rather see who the wordsmiths are around here.


Recommended: Yes