Debby Trimmer 2012

"We're toy mice," said the child. "Is it Miss or Mr. Mudd? Please excuse my asking, but I can't tell by looking at you."

"Miss," said the little creature. She was something like a misshapen grasshopper, and was as drab and muddy as her name. "I'll be your friend if you'll be mine," she said. "Will you, do you think? I'm so unsure of everything."

"We'll be your friends," said the child. "We're unsure too, especially about the little dogs."

"I know," said Miss Mudd. "It's all so difficult. And of course everyone bigger than I tries to eat me, and I'm always busy eating everyone smaller. So there isn't much time to think things out." As she spoke, she flung what looked like an arm out from her face, caught a water flea, and ate it up. "It's so distasteful," she said. "I know it's distasteful. I've got this nasty sort of a huge lip with a joint in it like an elbow, and I catch my food with it. And the odd thing, you see, is that I don't think that's how I really am. I just can't believe that I'm this muddy thing crawling about in the muck. I don't feel as if I am. I simply can't tell you how I feel inside! Clean and bright and beautiful--like a song in the sunlight, like a sigh in the summer air."

- from The Mouse and His Child

Posted on Facebook and left in the stacks at Title Wave Books, Anchorage, AK