No, Stuart Little Isn’t A Mouse

There are some things I thought I could take for granted. I always assumed paprika came from some spicy variety of pepper, but while traditional ones can contain varying degrees of heat, many large manufacturers use a type of sweet bell pepper instead.

I’d believed “wi-fi” stood for something, like “wifeless fidelity,” too. Nope: its name “doesn’t stand for anything. It is not an acronym. There is no meaning”.

But even I, a person who could fairly be described as “professionally bemused,” was uniquely surprised to learn that Stuart Little is not actually a mouse.

And looking at the responses to an X post from film critic and editor of Slash Film, Chris Evangelista, it seems I’m not alone.

The film Stuart Little is based on the book Stuart Little by EB White (also the author of Charlotte’s Web).

And I sincerely regret to inform you that the first chapter of that cursed tome novel, “In The Drain,” begins in this haunting manner:

“When Mrs Frederick C. Little’s second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse. The truth of the matter was, the baby looked very much like a mouse in every way. He was only about two inches high; and he had a mouse’s sharp nose, a mouse’s tail, a mouse’s whiskers, and the pleasant, shy manner of a mouse. Before he was many days old he was not only looking like a mouse but acting like one, too – wearing a grey hat and carrying a small cane. Mr and Mrs Little named him Stuart, and Mr Little made him a tiny bed out of four clothespins and a cigarette box.

So, while publisher Harper Collins markets the children’s book as a “classic novel about a small mouse… born to a family of humans,” the perhaps less invested Britannica is more alive to its body horror realities.

It is, they point out, about a “two-inch-tall boy who resembles a mouse”.

Which begs the question, A24 Stuart Little remake when?

In response to the recent X post, one netizen called the news “disturbing”.

Another pointed to the historical myth of sooterkins. These were believed to be the rat-like afterbirth of some Dutch women (great! Normal!).

But it is not the first time innocent internet users have become aware of the fact.

A post shared to Reddit’s r/todayilearned pointed out the “mouse”’s true species in 2018.

“He also tries to get frisky/date a girl who is tiny like him and looks like a human,” wrote u/Atoning_Unifex.

Yup, that’d be Harriet Ames, who does not look like a mouse. Stuart got the hots for her after hearing that she was a little “shorter” than him, and after a shopkeeper “gave [him] a most favourable report of [her] character and appearance”.

They did not work out. But notably, Stuart Little began a letter to her by saying, “I am a young person of modest proportions” (italics mine).

All in all, I’m with u/MattheJ1: “If I were Mr Little, I’d be asking some questions”.