I'M SICK OF IT!

An artful board-book parable. A small gray mouse, tired of being small, wants to be as enormous, massive, and monstrous as an elephant. He gets a reality check when the cat appears—and being small enough to squeeze through the mouse hole seems a very happy fate indeed. Bourgeau's illustrations are simultaneously simple and sophisticated, immediately accessible and accompanied by a scratchy, eccentric typeface, deployed to good effect, in various sizes and positions on the page. A charming identity crisis, gratifyingly played out; another temporary malcontent can be found in I'm Sick of It: A Fishy Melodrama (0-8431-7925-2). (Board book. 4-6)