Once Upon a Mouse

By: J. A. Zarifian

Narrated by: Amy Ball, Eoin Ryan, Raymond Donahey, Stefan Rudnicki, Susan Hanfield, Jaz Davison

Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

It's a rollicking cat-and-mouse tale, but this time, they're both on the same side - racing against time to save our world and theirs. The task takes on new urgency when they discover that what is at stake is nothing less than the power of imagination itself.

A modern take on timeless truths, familiar rhymes, fables, and fairy tales, told through the eyes of an "ultra-logical" mouse, a nonpredatory cat, and a teenage storyteller. You think you know these tales, but once the layers start peeling back, what is underneath will surprise and delight you.

Don't listen to this book if you think children should be seen and not heard, or if you hope that everyone you meet will turn out to be just like you, or if you just don't want to be bothered with any new experiences.

©2018 J. A. Zarifian (P)2018 Skyboat Media, Inc.

Was this rushed?

To make this short, the narrators and story were really good, but the production had a lot of problems.

Mostly, there are some parts that were just poorly produced. One example would be where two characters talk in unison, and for some reason the actors read the part of the script that said "They said at the same time". To make up an example, you would hear both voices say in unison, "Something something something, they said at the same time." The second part was obviously left in on accident from the written book, and it's so annoying and obvious that I don't know how it made it into the final product. There is no way anyone listening wouldn't notice.

The second problem is that the voice actors take turns narrating the stories, but not in any logical way. Randomly, in the middle of stories, the narrator will change for no apparent reason. This was confusing at times. At first I thought maybe there was a creative or artistic reason for the switch in the middle of a story, but by the end I was never able to figure out any reason that made any sense to me.

Other than that, the story was really good, and a treat for someone that grew up reading or listening to Mother Goose stories. It was fun trying to guess which characters were from which stories. The voice actors were also very good, especially whoever voiced the mouse.

Despite the problems listed here, I would still recommend this. A different version might be better though.