Storytime Potentials: Once Upon a Twice, Denise Doyen, Barry Moser

This book came up as a suggested title when I was searching for "Mouse" themed books for an upcoming storytime.

Sadly, this one is waaaaay too long and linguistically complicated for use in storytime, but it has interesting potential as a storytelling (ie - no books, just memorized) experiment, along the lines of Jabberwocky.

Once Upon a Twice
Denise Doyen, illustrated by Barry Moser
ISBN: 9780375956126
picture book with "nonsense verse" of portmanteau words, mostly descriptive, narrating the tale of an especially adventuresome mouse who didn't heed the cautions of his elders.

The language in this is just stellar, although I have to give an early shout-out for the beautiful cover with the glorious moon hanging over dense jungly grass-scape (shades of William Joyce's The Leaf Men) and the lush dark pages with firefly glows on every page not-quite concealing the pairs of non-firefly-eyes that peer hungrily at the little mousies.  (Attentive viewers can pick out snake and cat eyes on many of the pages, as well as a soaring hawk silhouette menacing overhead.)

Now, that said, the language.  I love nonsense verse, but here the words are really not that nonsensical - they're more like rap or beat poetry vocalizations and improvisations - here's an example from early in the book describing the mice:

The Mice were scoutaprowl
They runtunnel through the riddle -
Secret ruts hid inbetwiddle-
But one mousling jams the middle!
Whilst he goofiddles, others howl;
"What's the holdup?  What's the matter?"
Night's qui-etiquette is shattered!

And another one later on, describing a deadly danger:

Half-submerged, a slender queen
Esses 'cross the pond unseen,
Espies the furlickt mouse's sheen,
Sly serpentine - bound not to miss...

So really, I do think that "nonsense verse" is taking it a little far.  Anyone can see where those words are coming from, and the implications of them as so blended or creatively applied (I'm especially fond of "esses" as a water-snake's movement verb).

Anyway - the actual story isn't all that amazing - brazen mouse wants to stop and smell the roses, to enjoy life under the moon, and ignores warnings to stick to hidden paths and to watch out for danger.  A quick snap, a snaky struggle, and our mousling learns an important life lesson, which results in a long life, and great popularity as a teller of terrible tales to subsequent mousy generations.

I really do think it would be fun as a Halloween story to tell, I just can't do it with my group because they're way too young.  I almost think that adults would enjoy the wordplay more if they were just listening.