Ahoy there mateys! Here I take a second look at a previously enjoyed novel and give me crew me second reflections, as it were, upon visitin’ it again. The first mate and I talked about the book and I enjoyed his viewpoint so I ordered asked him to write a review. Please note that I write like I talk and the first mate writes like he thinks. Hope ye enjoy!

From yer Captain:

I adored Beverly Cleary’s books when I was young. The first mate and I were going on a short road trip and I had been wanting to read Ralph S. Mouse again so I downloaded the first book in the series to listen to in the car. The first mate was not a huge reader of “children’s” books as a younger lad. But I was surprised that he did know about Ralph and in fact loved him. So we listened to this together.

One of the odd things about this series is that I know I have read all three Ralph S. Mouse stories. But as time has progressed, I seemed to have merged all three of them together. I couldn’t tell ye which was which. After listening to the first book, I know that this was not me favourite. Where was the car?

The biggest difference in listening to this was in how aggressive and forceful Ralph is. He was pushy with the boy, Keith and kinda mean towards him. I didn’t remember that! It kinda made me sad as Keith was so sweet about lending Ralph the motorcycle. In fact, I really didn’t remember much about Keith at all before I listened to this again. Me older self was impressed with how kind, generous, and thoughtful Keith was. Me younger self obviously thought he was irrelevant and only cared about Ralph.

That said, I did still find this to be a sweet and fun story. Ralph does redeem himself in the end. I do think the magic will still hold up for children. I just didn’t expect to find fault with it as an adult. It makes me wary to reread the rest of the series even though the plots of those next two are muddled beyond belief in me noggin’.

From the First Mate:

I don’t remember ever reading The Mouse and the Motorcycle as a child. There’s this vague memory of it being one of the books that my third grade teacher read to the class (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe being the only one that I have a distinct memory of), but I cannot really recall. The sequel Runaway Ralph – that was one of my favorite books as a child; I must have read it a dozen times after my mother purchased it for me from the Scholastic book fair one year. In fact, I think I still have that well read copy in storage.

Listening to an audiobook version of The Mouse and the Motorcycle leaves me with an odd thought. Ralph was written to be way more of a jerk than I remembered from Runaway Ralph. I don’t know if that’s because he changes in the second book, or if it’s simply the differing ways a child and an adult evaluate characters and their actions. In some ways, it appears that Ralph’s abrasive personality was meant to distinguish him from the rest of the mice and present him in a more daring and assertive way.

Ralph aside, the writing of the novel is very enjoyable. Similar to the writing of Dorothy Gilman, the work is a series of set pieces that quietly build to a stress event that requires every bit of moxie the protagonist can muster to overcome. The pursuit of Ralph’s final goal is suitably fun and the tension builds appropriately.

I’m unlikely to revisit the Ralph books again. My good memories of Runaway Ralph are still intact (I can convince myself that he’s a very different character in the later book), and I just didn’t get enough out of The Mouse and the Motorcycle to ever want to read it again. That said, I still would say that it’s a quality children’s book.

Captain’s Side note: Did ye know that Beverly Cleary be 102 years old!

Check out me other reviews at https://thecaptainsquartersblog.wordp...

Little outdated, but I think Jovan enjoyed it.

Beverly Cleary wrote many children's classics over a career that spanned the entire second half of the twentieth century, and The Mouse and the Motorcycle is one of her most beloved. A kid on vacation with his parents comes together with a mouse who longs to explore the world, and the two have an adventure that takes place almost entirely within a hotel, yet feels much bigger. Keith Gridley and his parents are traveling the West Coast in midsummer when they stop for a few nights in California at the Mountain View Inn. Highway traffic is tedious this close to the Fourth of July, and Mr. Gridley would rather relax at a hotel until it clears up. The family takes two rooms, one for the mother and father and the other for Keith, who doesn't yet know he's sharing a room with a family of mice living inside a knothole in the wall. Ralph the mouse is intrigued by the toy cars Keith plays with atop his bedspread. The motorcycle in particular looks fun, perfectly sized for a mouse. There wouldn't be any harm in climbing on for a moment while Keith is away...would there?

Life is hazardous for mice, but Ralph survives his initial escapade with the motorcycle when Keith turns out to be kinder than some boys. He helps Ralph out of the wastebasket he fell into with the motorcycle, and teaches the frightened mouse how to start the bike's motor running. Does Ralph have the imaginative capacity to do it? Keith treasures his motorcycle but lets Ralph ride it in the hotel hallways at night, so long as he leaves it parked under Keith's bed during the day. Keith also brings "room service" to Ralph's family, selecting choice morsels from the hotel's breakfast room and secreting them upstairs. Never have the mice eaten so well, and Ralph knows it will be a sad day when his human friend goes home.

Numerous adventures await a boy and mouse who both feel frustrated being treated like kids. Ralph's motorcycle outings go well until the day he and his mount end up trapped in a pillowcase and deposited with the dirty linens in the laundry room. He has to chew his way out and abandon his beautiful bike. Keith regrets trusting Ralph with his toy, but he's not mad enough to end the friendship. Ralph is a kid who made a mistake, as Keith often does and is reprimanded by his parents. Housekeeping staff is on the alert for mice after discovering the chewed linens in the laundry room, so Ralph's family has to keep a low profile for a while, but Ralph still comes out and converses with Keith in the hotel room. A boy and a mouse somehow speaking the same language isn't so far-fetched when you consider their similarities at heart. Keith won't live at the Mountain View Inn forever, but before he's gone Ralph has a chance in a moment of crisis to prove himself trustworthy. Keith is years from being allowed to drive a motorcycle, but he can take vicarious pleasure in Ralph's riding as the mouse explores new frontiers in and around his hotel home. There's a lot to look forward to as they both grow up.

The Mouse and the Motorcycle is warm and entertaining, just what I expect from Beverly Cleary. It balances the happy innocence of being a kid with the excitement of making one's own choices in a world that offers danger and reward in equal measure. Watching Keith and Ralph head out into the rest of their lives with no way of knowing what to expect is a poignant feeling. As usual, Louis Darling's illustrations are first class, perfectly suited to Beverly Cleary's writing. I rate The Mouse and the Motorcycle two and a half stars, and could have easily rounded up instead of down. The sincere goodness in Beverly Cleary's novels is a gift to children forevermore.

Nice little story that I read for a challenge

It was nice to revisit the story of a mouse who just couldn't resist the lure of the open road. Ralph isn't like other mice. Disinterested in proper mousy culture, he instead finds his calling in riding a plastic motorcycle, which magically moves under the strength of his belief and his ability to make proper motorcycle sounds.

Selfish and immature, Ralph engages in many adventures, not the least of which is in finding an aspirin on the floor which he gives to a sick child. (caution: children should never be given aspirin or eat pills found on the floor. Why is no one else appalled by this?)

Still, the adventure hasn't paled and is still fun to read, despite the fact that it was written forever ago (hey, I read this when I was a child, that should be telling you something!). Still recommended today as a fun book to engage beginning readers.

This is the first chapter book that I read aloud to my oldest son.

He absolutely loved it!

I had read this as a child but it had been so long all I remembered was that Ralph rode the motorcycle and that he had a cute little helmet. I'm glad that such a sweet little story was Logan's introduction to chapter books. I mean you can't really go wrong with Beverly Cleary. I plan for us to take on some Roald Dahl next so he is going to have high expectations of books when he starts reading anything longer than Dr. Seuss on his own.

Solid read with great illustrations. Who needs Shakespeare when we have this??

Read this aloud to my 4 year old. I remember reading it myself as a kid, so it was a nostalgic re-read.

I remember reading both this and Stuart Little as a kid, but of the two mouse stories this one has a much more satisfying ending.

I vaguely remember reading this as a preteen. I can't wait to read it again with our girls!

July 2013 update: We finally got around to this one. I borrowed an audio CD of this book, with William Roberts as the narrator.

Unfortunately, the story seemed a bit old fashioned and dragged in places - our youngest complained that she was bored with the book about halfway through (so did my husband), but we listened on and she seemed to be more engaged in the story toward the end.

The CD was a bit garbled in places, so I read the last few pages from the paperback book (with ISBN 0380709244) that I'd brought along just for that purpose.

Overall, I thought it was a charming tale and it was good timing that we read it now, since it takes place right before the Fourth of July. The characters are entertaining and we loved the different personalities of the mice. I think I'd like to read the next two books in the series with our girls, too.

It's refreshing to read a story written believably from the perspective of an animal. Ralph is an otherwise ordinary mouse who is also obsessed with riding a kickass motorcycle. The story is the natural consequences of that obsession mixed with Ralph's character development; to me, he becomes a better mouse through his exposure to good-natured humans (who he doesn't talk to often, because not enough good-natured humans share his love of motorcycles).

I loved this book as a kid. Reading it today, it feels like it was written to make adults laugh as they read it aloud to their captivated child audience. Excited to remember what's next for Ralph.

"The Mouse and the Motorcycle" is a book about a mouse named Ralph who lives in a hotel. One day a family come into the apartment where Ralph lives. One boy has some toy cars and one is a motorcycle. When the family is gone Ralph decides to take the motorcycle for a ride. Ralph ends up falling into a wastebasket. When the family comes back the child finds Ralph. The two are able to talk to each other, and they become friends. Later in the book Ralph loses the motorcylce and the child becomes ill. You have to read the book to see what happens next. I recommend this book for young adults who like adventure and fiction.

The everyone in the boys’ elementary school was assigned to read this together.

J (6) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️ “I liked when all the animals talked. I wish Ralph had made a different decision at the end.”
C (9) - ⭐️⭐️ “I liked the description of the motorcycle, but I didn’t like all the old words the author used. This wasn’t my type of book.”