This new book adds to the treasury of African stories, traditional and modern, that Tololwa Mollel has brought to Canadian children’s literature from his Tanzanian background. As he explains in a note at the end of the book, Mollel has adapted the traditional story in which “a mouse searches the universe for a fitting bride.” In this new rendition, Mollel’s mouse hero, Kitoto, searches for a powerful friend to protect him from the hawk when he ventures out on the Savannah in search of food; the story concludes with a pact of friendship rather than marriage. Mollel’s version thus becomes a consciously non-sexist story of a quest for survival. Its resolution is suggested on the first page for the alert young listener; Kitoto is vulnerable because he has never learned to dig burrows. Meeting Kigego, the mountain mouse, who with her own little teeth has “carved a world out of the mountain,” Kitoto learns how to protect himself, and teaches Kigego in turn the secrets of the Savannah.

Kitoto the Mighty naturally invites comparison with other fine stories such as Gerald McDermott’s The Stonecutter and John Steptoe’s The Story of Jumping Mouse, which, along with Aesop’s fable of the lion and the mouse, share the common theme of the strength of the apparently insignificant. Mollel’s adaptation of the mouse story, however, does raise one or two questions, such as why the discovery of Kigego’s mountain burrows provides greater security for Kitoto in his quest for food than the bush in which he hid at the beginning. These are quibbles, however, and need not detract from the overall effect of the story. The scene of the discovery of Kigego is humorously handled (Kitoto is frightened by her shadow and assumes she is a terrible giant), and Kitoto’s interviews with the great forces of the universe are colourfully individualized by both author and illustrator. These are the most successful of Frost’s illustrations – particularly her blanket-wrapped Sun and the long, flying braids of the Wind.