For preschoolers and young kindergartners, nice to use in an apple theme or to pair with Wood's "Little Mouse, Red, Ripe Strawberry, and the Big, Hungry Bear". Mouse finds an apple and decides to hide it, in the ground. Animals come along and ask "What are you hiding?" but Mouse won't tell. The apple grows into a tree, and apples eventually fall. Mouse decides some secrets are better when you share them. Super-simple, nice for retelling with puppets or a feltboard, or as Readers' Theater. Aside from me being a little too worried about whether "sharing secrets" is too fraught a concept for preschool storytime (what secrets? when? to whom?), I do like the idea of the apple seeds sprouting behind the mouse and all the storytime kids being able to be in on the joke. I love the spare illustrations, and how the mouse stays the same size at the bottom of the page while the apple tree slowly fills the page up.
Do You like book Little Mouse's Big Secret (2011)?
cute and funny, but the pictures are too small to share with a big ST group
—harry
Nice illustrations, but a predictable outcome. Good for emerging readers.
—Erie
It's hard to keep a secret that keeps growing right before your eyes.
—Eric
