Traditional Literature- Seven Blind Mice

Ed Young’s Seven Blind Mice is a folktale about seven colorful mice that come upon a “strange Something at their pond." “What it is it?” they cried. On Monday the Red Mouse went to look and said,” It is a pillar.” No one believed him so they each went to see. Green Mouse saw a snake, Yellow Mouse saw a spear, and so it went that each of the mice seeing something different. White Mouse looks and says “Now I see.” He sees each of the parts that the other mice see, but he also sees the parts all put together as “an elephant.” The mice all agree as they see it too. The Mouse Moral:” Knowing in part may make a fine tale, but wisdom comes from seeing the whole." The Indian fable The Blind Men and the Elephant is re-told in Ed Young’s Seven Blind Mice in a way that can reach the younger reader. The men become mice of many colors and the time passes by the days of the week letting the young child understand in a more concrete way the time it took to see each part. The choice of collage pictures set against the black ground is simplistic yet conveys how the mouse sees each part. The story moves from page to page with just the right amount of text. The illustrations allow the young reader to see details and how they could be interpreted as a spear, a rope or even a snake.
Awards and Reviews:
Winner of the Caldecott Honor Award -1992

Kirkus Review starred (1992) Exquisitely crafted: a simple, gracefully honed text, an appealing story, real but unobtrusive values and levels of meaning, and outstanding illustrations and design--all add up to a perfect book.
Horn Book starred (September, 1992)- The spareness of the text is echoed in the splendid collages. Immensely appealing.
Booklist starred (Vol. 88, No. 15 (April 1, 1992))- What does one see? Curved lines? Tails? Mice? At once profound and simple, intelligent and playful, this picture book is the work of an artist who understands the medium and respects his audience.

I have always used this book as a way to review color words, ordinal numbers, and days of the week more than an example of traditional literature. I am glad to have looked at this book again as a way to teach folktales, perspective, parts to whole, and of course the moral of “wisdom coming from seeing the whole.” I think that has been my Ah Ha moment for me with this book. It is one more part to a unit on traditional literature that I didn’t really explore with my students. I am adding schoolyard rhymes and more fables and folktales to my list of fairy tales.