One is a Feast for a Mouse: A Thanksgiving Tale by Judy Cox

One is a Feast for a Mouse: A Thanksgiving Tale by Judy Cox, illustrated by Jeffrey Ebbeler

Rating: 4 stars

After his people eat a gigantic Thanksgiving feast and roll themselves to the sofa before cleaning up, Mouse decides to take a chance and get himself a Thanksgiving feast.  There is so much to eat!

Mouse starts to grab things... but just ONE of everything, since he's so small.  After each item he takes, he says, "One is a feast for me."  As you can see from the cover, he gathers a bunch of things--way too many--and his initial decision to balance everything on the initial pea is a (funny to watch but) pretty bad idea.  He's doing okay until...

Dum-de-dum-dum...

Cat spots him!

Of course everything goes flying and Mouse decides his life is worth more than his feast.  He makes a run for it, back to his hidey-hole in the family's clock.  He gets there safely, and ends up being satisfied with the single pea that he brings back home.

"Give thanks!  One is a feast for me!" he says.

And there, at the table's edge, he met Cat!

I have to tell you:  I appreciate Mouse being so gracious and not thinking at all about that which he left behind.  I laud his ability to focus on the positive: a pea, rather than nothing.  My kids didn't bat an eye; it's me reading into this reading more than those in my lap.  But I know there are kids out there who have to walk away from toys and feasts and situations that, once they get a taste of, are hard to let go.  Maybe it's the quiet-ness of Mouse that is most surprising--I think that most of these departures are filled with a bit o' whining and maybe, if I'm lucky, a small tantrum.

And Mouse is here to teach us (yup, us grown-ups, too) that very important lesson of appreciating what we have, rather than looking around and being sad about what we have NOT.  One of those lessons that we have to learn and relearn.  And then learn again.  Oh--and then once more!

But 'tis the season for this lesson: give thanks for what we have, joyfully.  Even if it is just one pea--make a feast out of it.