9. The Mouse and the Motorcycle

Book: The Mouse and the Motorcycle

Author: Beverly Cleary

Number of pages: 159

What I’m watching: TV: The Office

What I’m playing: Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Kingdom Hearts, Far Cry 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

            I rolled a four! Honestly, this was the one I wanted to read next, anyway.

I remember loving Beverly Cleary’s tales about Henry, Ribsy, Beezus, and Ramona as a kid. I also remember Runaway Ralph, the ABC TV-movie based on The Mouse and the Motorcycle’s sequel, with stop-motion mice and a young Fred Savage. For me, reading this book would be like eating a slice of my childhood out of some nostalgia pie, even though I've never read this particular book.

            So, Ralph the mouse lives in a hotel wall with his family. They make a living by eating fallen crumbs from guests in their room. A family stops by and the kid, Keith, gets the room to himself. He brings along toys, including a –whaddaya know– motorcycle. At his first opportunity, Ralph checks out the motorcycle close-up, fascinated by it. Beverly Cleary is pretty funny. As Ralph gushes over the toy, he thinks “it even had a little license plate so it would be legal to ride” (23). I enjoyed that. Ralph mounts the motorcycle, and not too long after, crash lands into the garbage basket and can’t escape. Oddly enough, all the while Ralph is failing at climbing out of the little bin, the illustrator included a picture of Ralph successfully knocking the basket over.

There’s a picture in the book of something that doesn’t happen in the story, not even in Ralph’s mind.

            Keith comes and finds Ralph still stuck in the garbage with the motorcycle. Turns out they can talk to each other because “two creatures who shared a love for motorcycles naturally spoke the same language” (38-39). Groan…Anyway, Keith says Ralph can borrow the motorcycle at night, letting Keith play during the day. Keith explains that to make the motorcycle go, you have to make a motorcycle sound, like “pb-pb-b-b-b” (44). Groan…I guess I should’ve expected this kind of stuff in a kid’s book.

            I also didn’t expect coming across words I didn’t recognize. I graduated with an English degree, and Beverly Cleary just taught me two new words in a children’s story: “antimacassar” (14) and “zwieback” (33), a cloth furniture-cover and bread.

            I’m sad to say, I was bored throughout most of the book. Maybe I’ve outgrown The Mouse and the Motorcycle. I hope I would still enjoy Henry and Ribsy and Beezus and Ramona if I re-read those. Maybe I just don’t have the nostalgia factor here, even though this book was so close to being a part of my childhood.

Maybe The Mouse and the Motorcycle was just plain uneventful. Which I think is true. Ralph drives around the hallway at night. At one point, he pisses off a dog, but the dog is securely held in the arms of its owner, so nothing happens. Oh yeah, the dog and also the elderly busboy Matt, can talk with Ralph. I guess they love motorcycles, too? Later, Ralph drives into a pillowcase and loses the motorcycle to the laundry. Keith gets a fever one night, but there’s no medicine available. Ralph goes on an adventure to find an aspirin tablet. His search through the hotel for medicine might’ve been harrowing for a mouse, but it was too tame for me. I hope if I re-read Stuart Little, I’d still enjoy that.

Of course, again I have to remind myself that I shouldn’t have expected anything too intense for a kid’s book. Man, now I’m really worried that I can no longer appreciate good children’s literature.

            Anyway, Ralph finds a pill hidden until a dresser or something. He manages to get it back to Keith’s room. Transporting the pill was a big part of the book. Early in the book, I read how aspirin killed Ralph's father, so Ralph looking for aspirin is kind of a big deal for him and his family. Ralph’s father once kept an aspirin tablet in his mouth, but “the aspirin had dissolved with an unexpected suddenness, and Ralph’s father had been poisoned” (22). I actually know a guy who did that to try to relieve a toothache. However, aspirin is an acid, so it burned away his gums. In my psychopharmacology class at Stritch, I learned that it’s possible to overdose on aspirin. So when I was reading this part, I was thinking, “Yeah, that can happen, but poisoning from just one pill?” And then I thought, “Oh yeah, he’s a mouse.”

            In the end, Keith feels better and gives Ralph the motorcycle as a gift to keep. Everyone is happy. They all learned a few things, grew up a little, and so on.

            I’m just disappointed. I was excited for this book, and I ended up bored. I still like Beverly Cleary in general, and the book did have a few funny moments. This one just wasn’t for me.

 

Verdict (Is the book staying or going?): Pb-pb-b-b-b. This book is going.

 

Works Cited

Cleary, Beverly. The Mouse and the Motorcycle. New York: Avon Books, 1965. Print.