Former astronaut Mike Kelly – I like the phrase "former astronaut," as if he decided that the astronaut game wasn't for him and went into real estate instead – is writing a children's book called Mousetronaut: A Partially True Story.

In it, he tells the tale of a mouse who supposedly enjoyed being in zero gravity, unlike all the other rodents in his cage who clung to the sides of it in pure, searing murine terror.

Ignoring the fact that a "mousetronaut" is technically someone who travels through a mouse, I'm happy that we're finally seeing stories about lab animals that are at least partially true. Previous children's favorites like Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH and Monkey Shines: An Experiment in Fear have taken tremendous liberties with the truth. For instance, in Frisby the titular mouse wears a little cape, and in Monkey Shines, the murderous, jealous, mind-reading tufted capuchin makes noises that sound much more like a golden-bellied capuchin.

Let's hope Mousetronaut is a tremendous success, if not for the children's sake, then for me personally. I have a series of amusing and edifying children's books about lab animals in the works.

For example:

Bravebunny, The Rabbit Who Was Probably Somewhat Less Terrified Than the Other Experimental Rabbits

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Control Group

Gaster, The Eyeless Fruit Fly

Are You My Mother, Or Just Chicken Wire Wrapped With Terrycloth?

The Special Amazing Friendship Club: Animals Who Were Launched Into Space and Left to Die

Screw You, Professor Jerk, and Screw Your Stupid Maze Twice

Vivisection Vivian, The Inside-Out Frog

The Prettiest Bunny: A Story of Cosmetic Testing

The Giving Beagle

Junkie: The Rat Who Died Because He Preferred Heroin to Food

Where the Statistically Valid Things Are

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Who Was Not Allowed To Eat in Order to Learn Something About Carbohydrates or Something

Pat the Bunny for Precisely 10 Seconds at 10 Minute Intervals for Three Weeks

Everyone Poops; Graduate Students Have to Clean It Up

Bread and Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate for Frances

Clifford the Big Red Swollen Infected Dog

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Laced With Pesticide

The Cat in the Lab

Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears: An Analysis of Frequency Modulation in the Female Aedes aegypti (Journal of Entomological Research, Vol XXVII, No. 3)

Puff, the Magic Dragon Does Not Exist

The Runaway Bunny and the Resulting Tularemia Outbreak

Curious George Is Not So Curious Now, Huh?

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Research

Frog and Toad Are Excellent Instruction Tools for High School Biology Classes

The Tale of Squirrel No. 341593-B

Chocolate, the Chocolate Lab Who Ate Chocolate in a Lab

The Cat Who Could See Colors: A Psychoactive Tail

The Ugly Duckling Who Got Uglier

The Lorax Drinks Clorox

The Monster at the End of This Academic Career

Old McDonald Had a Laboratory Animal Supply Company

Grab Your Sister's Hamster: Fun Science Experiments for Kids

The Tale of 4,000 Bad Rats

The Poked Little Puppy

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Born helpless, naked and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a control group, a control freak and a control tower.