In Moose, Goose, and Mouse's back-of-book note, Jeff Mack says that his friend Mordicai Gerstein, who died in 2019, "wrote in just about every genre of children's literature." Actually, Gerstein's final work falls into a marvelous category all its own: animal-centered runaway-train stories powered by rhymes and loopiness.
One rainy day, the eponymous animals have had it with their cold, moldy, leaky old house. "I want a house that's sunny," says Mouse. "I want a house that's funny!" says Moose. "I want one with a bunny," says Goose. So they hop aboard a train and set off in search of a new home that fits the bill. When the rope tethering the engine to the caboose, which the friends are riding in, snaps, the car goes cannonballing, ultimately colliding with a tree and flipping over. The upshot? Moose, Goose and Mouse find themselves in the sun with a "loose caboose for a house" ("SUNNY, FUNNY") while a floppy-eared new friend ("BUNNY!") looks on.
When his health was declining, Gerstein (The Fisherman & the Whale) asked Mack (Ah Ha!) to collaborate on the book's art, and they forged a dynamic style that seems to have been spun from a toddler's funny bone. Each protagonist--all-legs-and-antlers green Moose, noodle-necked blue Goose and whirligig-tailed magenta Mouse--exerts a distinct visual pull. As Moose, Goose, and Mouse reaches its final destination, it carries the message that problems can be solved and that friendship--including Gerstein and Mack's--can lead somewhere beautiful. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author