This is a kids story. It has the bizarre themes that you sometimes get in kids stories.
In all honesty, I don't think I can say that it was a terrible story. It is upbeat and cheerful and there's a lot of things that are ridiculous and make you laugh.
Reading, or listening, to it with an adults mind means that it can come across as so ridiculous that your enjoyment of the story is less.
This isn't like the films, although a lot of things were taken from this story and put into the films in some form.
Stuart is a mouse born to humans. And the doctor just claims that this is unusual. I think that's it. There's kind of an idea that Stuart is, in fact, a very small human who looks like a mouse.
The book largely covers how Stuart tries to survive in the human world, while his family worry about him, and how he uses his small size to help others. He is shown to get on badly with the family cat Snowbell, which is no surprise.
Stuart makes a new friend in Margalo, a bird who is saved by the Little family and who in turn also saves Stuart when he gets into a tricky situation. Snowbell doesn't take well to having to live with two small creatures that it is his natural instinct to chase. This causes a situation where Margalo disappears and Stuart goes on an adventure to find her, getting up to all sorts in the process.
The story moves along at a quick and snappy pace. It is mostly upbeat and has some laughs.
The only issue I had is the fact that I am in my thirties and reading a kids book. So my adult logic kept interrupting and it all seemed very bizarre.
I think there might have been three films for Stuart Little, the third being animated, but I've only seen the first two, which are a mix of live action and animation. Probably as a method of extending the plot and also making it seem just slightly more believable, Stuart was a mouse who was adopted into the Little family, not born to them. This created the plot of George Little having to accept a mouse as his brother. It also helped in expanding the plot of Snowbell trying to deal with the issue of having a mouse for an owner, and Stuart trying to figure out how he fits into the world.
It was the second film that featured Margalo as she became friends with Stuart before she disappeared and how Stuart went on to try and find her, but added in an entirely new plot with the villain Falcon. Across both films are various events from the book.
A friendship with Snowbell is something featured in the films but not the book, as Snowbell was, eventually, seen actually trying to rescue Stuart from the attempts on his life. In the second film Snowbell was also a clear friend and ally of Stuart in his search for Margalo. He was one of the best and most hilarious characters in the whole film franchise.
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