Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young

I had never heard of the ancient fable of the Blind Mice and Elephant before reading Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young.  Or, maybe I had heard the story but it just wasn’t remarkable enough to remember.  However, when the fable is paired with colorful, paper collage illustrations, such as the ones found in this book, the story truly becomes unforgettable.  It is no surprise this book won a Caldecott Medal; the images of the colorful mice in front of the black background discovering parts of the paper collage elephant is beautiful!  Not only is the story aesthetically appealing, though, but it also has a refreshing, cultural moral at the center of its plot for readers to keep for all time: Knowing in part may make a fine tale, but wisdom comes from seeing the whole.
            I believe younger elementary students would get the most from this book.  Children will love looking at the colorful mice and will have a blast predicting what the thing is that the mice are feeling.  As far as lessons goes, this would be a good book to help younger children practice determining the sequence of events in a story.   For an affective and social skills lesson, this story can be used as a lead in to a discussion about how it feels when you disagree with someone and how to handle it.  For older elementary students, this book could be used to introduce and discuss morals or similes.  For any age, I think this book can be used to discuss what it would be like to be without the sense of sight.  I envision putting various objects in paper bags and having students figure out what the object s are using only their sense of touch.  To incorporate writing into this activity, students can make a list of adjectives of the objects they felt.  Just blogging about this activity gets me excited…I can’t wait to use this book with a class someday! J
Year Published: 1992          Awards: Caldecott Medal