The Lion & the Mouse is a 2009 nearly wordless picture book illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. Published by Little, Brown and Company, it tells Aesop's fable of The Lion and the Mouse. In the story, a mouse's life is a spared by a lion. Later, after the lion is trapped, the mouse is able to set the lion free. Adapting the fable, with the moral that the weak can help the strong, as a wordless picture book was seen as a successful way of overcoming the brief plot generally found in the source stories. While it was Pinkney's first wordless picture book, it was not the first time he had told the story, having previously included it in his Aesop's Fables, published in 2000. Pinkney, who had received five Caldecott Honors, became the first African American to win the Caldecott Medal for his illustrat