“The Crickets”
from “Mouse Soup” by Arnold Lobel

“The Crickets” is a perfect story for music time – funny,
well-written. easy to follow, and very musical. It’s one of
the stories in “Mouse Soup” by the great Arnold Lobel,
about a mouse who puts off ( and escapes) his eventual
inclusion in a weasel’s soup pot by telling him stories,
Scheherazade-style.

In “The Crickets,” a mouse can’t get to sleep because of
the chirping of a noisy cricket. When he tells the crcket
he doesn’t want any more music, the cricket thinks he
means “More music!” and gets some friends. More
misunderstandings ensue until a field full of crickets
is serenading the poor little mouse. Finally, the crickets
understand and cheerfully hop away, and the mouse
gets his sleep.

Children love to chirp, and then to chirp louder and
louder and louder. You can have them chirp along with
the crickets in the story, or actually have them act out
the story with one child as the mouse, one as the first
cricket, and so on.

Either way, this story teaches about soft and loud, and
musical texture, and provides lots of noisy, chirpy fun!