The Upsidedown Mice
The Upsidedown Mice is a short story for children by the British writer Roald Dahl (1916–1990). It was first published in 1974 by Puffin Books , a children's book division of the London publisher Penguin Books . Another publication followed in 1996 by the publishing house HarperCollins, also based in London . This short story has not yet been published in German.
The short story The Upsidedown Mice is a child-friendly and more contemporary rework of Dahl's short story Smoked Cheese , which was published back in 1945 and had adults as the target reader.
action
In The Upsidedown Mice , the 87-year-old Labon lives alone in a house infested with mice. Initially, Labon tolerated the mice. However, after increasing numbers, he wants to get rid of them. He sticks mousetraps on the ceiling and puts cheese in the traps. When the mice come out of their holes in the night and see the mousetraps on the ceiling, they bump into each other and burst into great laughter. When Labon sees that not a single mouse has fallen into a trap, he sticks a chair, a table, a floor lamp, a television and a carpet upside down on the ceiling. When the mice come out of their holes the next night, they are still making fun of what they saw the night before. But when they look at the ceiling, they suddenly stop laughing and are all shocked. Since they think they can see the floor above them, they think they are standing on the ceiling. In order to stand in the supposedly correct direction towards the "ground" again, all mice stand upside down. They then feel dizzy and lose consciousness because of the excessive accumulation of blood in their brain. The next morning Labon sees that the whole floor is covered with mice. He picks up the unconscious mice and quickly puts them all in one basket. - The story ends with a saying : "What one should consider: Whenever the world seems to be terribly upside down, make sure that you have both feet firmly on the ground."
Upside down furniture on the ceiling in our time
Roald Dahl's idea of upside-down furniture on the ceiling, which he published in 1945, is also being implemented today. In upside down houses , which were built as tourist attractions in many countries around the world, the furniture is also upside down on the ceiling. Like the mice in The Upsidedown Mice and Smoked Cheese, the visitor has the illusion that he is facing the wrong way.
See also
- Key differences between Smoked Cheese and The Upsidedown Mice
- Standing upside down and sticking on - another occurrence at Dahl
- List of all over 70 short stories by Roald Dahl
literature
- Roald Dahl: The Upside-down Mice, in: The Upside-down Mice and other animal stories, London 1996, pp. 1 - 4
- Roald Dahl: The Upsidedown Mice , in: Puffin Annual Number One, London 1974
Web links
- Full text of the short story with questions about understanding the text
- Cover of the anthology Puffin Annual Number One with drawings of The Upsidedown Mice (roughly in the middle of the website)
- More information about the short story
- The Upside-Down Mice in Chinese (front cover and drawings)