1890? One brass button, 7/8" in diameter, picturing "The Crane and the Fish."
I can find this button in neither BBB nor Nelson and Sweat "Fables on Buttons" in The National Button Bulletin (Oct., '86). The button pictures a crane holding a creature aloft in its beak. The creature seems to me to be a fish. In the foreground are reeds and plants. The crane and vegetation are in brass against a black background formed by a hollowed out crater. The rim is serrated. There is a welded loop on the back.
1890? One two-piece brass button, 1 3/8" in diameter, picturing "The Crane and the Crayfish."
BBB Plate 154 # 2. For the editors there the identification of the fable is not certain. I am not sure that the brass on my button is tinted, as theirs is. Steel back and wire shank. This is a dramatic button, as the crane has a creature in his mouth, with lush vegetation in the background.
1997 The Country Mouse and the City Mouse: Wedge of Cheese, with two soft-sculpture mice. Read and Play. Storybook inside. Manufactured in China. Montreal: Tormont Publications, Inc. £3.99 at The Original Banana Bookshop, Covent Garden, London, July, '98.
The wedge comes with a bright red cord and so acts as both carrying case and house for the two mice, who fit nicely inside and can poke their heads out of the holes. The accompanying book of the same title and year also fits inside. Its text is by Robyn Bryant and its illustrations by Stéphane Turgeon. Click on the picture to see a larger version.
1993 The Country Mouse & the City Mouse. An HBO Storybook Musical. Starring Crystal Gale and John Lithgow. Music Composed and Arranged by David Evans. About twenty-five minutes. First aired in Fall, '93. Produced by Michael Sporn Animation for Random House Home Video. NY: Random House, Inc. Gift of Pack Carnes, Oct., '94. Extra copy taped from HBO by Tom and Diann Greener, Fall, '93.
A sentimental animated development of the TMCM story, set at Christmas in the 1930's. The mice have fancy clothes and mice-sized furniture but live in the big-sized human world. Emily from the country accepts cousin Alexander's invitation to visit him at Antoine's in New York. She uses a horse-drawn wagon, train, and parachute-umbrella to get there. Alexander is an uppity, condescending tour guide who likes to drop French phrases. Emily is swept into Macy's and gets lost. She loves the city but misses home and the children there and sings the first of two songs, "When someone you love is far away." The chef at Antoine's hates mice, gets a Christmas cat, and declares war. After a narrow escape, Emily invites Alexander out to the country, where the children, missing her, have left cheese and gifts. Second song: "Christmas is where the heart is."
