MONITOR QUIZ

'I think mice are rather nice,' declares poet Rose Fyleman. Many writers seem to feel the same way! Can you identify these mousey (or ratty) tales and their authors?

1. Then Hunca Munca went back and fetched a chair, a bookcase, a bird-cage, and several small odds and ends. The bookcase and the bird-cage refused to go into the mousehole.

2. "Well, your majesty," said the mouse, "I know you did not believe me once when I said I would return a kindness, but here is my chance." And without further ado he set to work to nibble with his sharp little teeth at the ropes that bound the lion. Soon the lion was able to crawl out of the hunter's snare and be free.

3. Except for one terrifying moment when the boy had poked his finger through the mousehole, a hungry young mouse named Ralph eagerly watched everything that went on in room 215.... Little messy children were always considerate about leaving crumbs on the carpet.

4. Mrs. Frisby, the head of a family of field mice, lived in an underground house in the vegetable garden of a farmer named Mr. Fitz- gibbon.... A tunnel to the surface-earth of the garden, dug so that it was slightly larger than a mouse and slightly smaller than a cat's foreleg, provided access, air, and even a fair amount of light to the living room.

5. "I'll tell you what I'll do," said Templeton. "I know where there's a package of soap flakes in the woodshed. It has writing on it. I'll bring you a piece of the package. " He climbed the rope that hung on the wall and disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. When he came back he had a strip of blue-and-white cardboard in his teeth. "There!" he said, triumphantly. "How's that?"

ANSWERS:

(1) 'The Tale of Two Bad Mice,' by Beatrix Potter; (2) 'The Lion and the Mouse,' by Aesop; (3) 'The Mouse and the Motorcycle,' by Beverly Cleary; (4) 'Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH,' by Robert C. O'Brien; (5) 'Charlotte's Web,' by E.B. White.

(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society