Product Description

This book presents an A-Mazing way to change and win! Who moved my cheese? is a simple parable that has helped millions of people around the world deal with the changes in their lives. It is an amusing and enlightening story of four characters who live in a 'Maze' and look for 'Cheese' to nourish them and make them happy. Two are mice named sniff and Scurry. And two are 'Little people' - beings the size of mice who look and act a lot like people. Their names are Hem and Haw. 'Cheese' is a metaphor for what you want to have in life - whether it is doing well in school, making the team, getting a good job, finding a loving relationship or just feeling good about yourself. And the 'Maze" is where you look for what you want - your school, where you work and play or the family or community you live in. In the story, the characters are faced with unexpected change. Eventually, one of them deals with it successfully, and writes what he learns from his experience on the Maze walls. When you come to see 'The Handwriting on the Wall', you can discover for yourself how to deal with change so that you can overcome your fears and see change as a way of gaining something better.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #65268 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 96 pages

About the Author
Spencer Johnson MD is an internationally respected thought leader whose books include Who Moved My Cheese? and (with Kenneth Blanchard) The One Minute Manager, the world's most popular management method. A former Leadership Fellow at The Harvard Business School, he has often been referred to as 'the best there is at taking complex subjects and presenting simple solutions that work'. He lives with his wife and their sons in New Hampshire and Hawaii.

Excerpted from Who Moved My Cheese? for Teens by Spencer Johnson. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Once, long ago in a land far away, there lived four little characters who ran through a Maze looking for cheese to nourish them and make them happy.

Two were mice named "Sniff" and "Scurry" and two were Littlepeople-beings who were as small as mice but who looked and acted a lot like people today. Their names were "Hem" and "Haw."

Due to their small size, it would be easy not to notice what the four of them were doing. But if you looked closely enough, you could discover the most amazing things!

Every day the mice and the Littlepeople spent time in the Maze looking for their own special cheese.

The mice, Sniff and Scurry, possessing simple brains and good instincts, searched for the hard nibbling cheese they liked, as mice often do.

The two Littlepeople, Hem and Haw, used their complex brains, filled with many beliefs and emotions, to search for a very different kind of Cheese-with a capital C-which they believed would make them feel happy and successful.

As different as the mice and Littlepeople were, they shared something in common: every morning, they each put on their jogging suits and running shoes, left their little homes, and raced out into the Maze looking for their favorite cheese.

The Maze was a labyrinth of corridors and chambers, some containing delicious cheese. But there were also dark corners and blind alleys leading nowhere. It was an easy place for anyone to get lost.

However, for those who found their way, the Maze held secrets that let them enjoy a better life.

The mice, Sniff and Scurry, used the simple trial-and-error method of finding cheese. They ran down one corridor, and if it proved empty, they turned and ran down another. They remembered the corridors that held no cheese and quickly went into new areas.

Sniff would smell out the general direction of the cheese, using his great nose, and Scurry would race ahead. They got lost, as you might expect, went off in the wrong direction and often bumped into walls. But after a while, they found their way.

Like the mice, the two Littlepeople, Hem and Haw, also used their ability to think and learn from their past experiences. However, they relied on their complex brains to develop more sophisticated methods of finding Cheese.

Sometimes they did well, but at other times their powerful human beliefs and emotions took over and clouded the way they looked at things. It made life in the Maze more complicated and challenging.

Nonetheless, Sniff, Scurry, Hem and Haw all discovered, in their own way, what they were looking for. They each found their own kind of cheese one day at the end of one of the corridors in Cheese Station C.

Every morning after that, the mice and the Littlepeople dressed in their running gear and headed over to Cheese Station C. It wasn't long before they each established their own routine.

Sniff and Scurry continued to wake early every day and race through the Maze, always following the same route.

When they arrived at their destination, the mice took off their running shoes, tied them together and hung them around their necks-so they could get to them quickly whenever they needed them again. Then they enjoyed the cheese.

In the beginning Hem and Haw also raced toward Cheese Station C every morning to enjoy the tasty new morsels that awaited them.

But after a while, a different routine set in for the Littlepeople.

Hem and Haw awoke each day a little later, dressed a little slower, and walked to Cheese Station C. After all, they knew where the Cheese was now and how to get there.

They had no idea where the Cheese came from, or who put it there. They just assumed it would be there.

As soon as Hem and Haw arrived at Cheese Station C each morning, they settled in and made themselves at home. They hung up their jogging suits, put away their running shoes and put on their slippers. They were becoming very comfortable now that they had found the Cheese.

"This is great," Hem said. "There's enough Cheese here to last us forever." The Littlepeople felt happy and successful, and thought they were now secure.

It wasn't long before Hem and Haw regarded the Cheese they found at Cheese Station C as their cheese. It was such a large store of Cheese that they eventually moved their homes to be closer to it, and built a social life around it.

Customer Reviews

Who moved my Cheese? for Teens
I bought this book to help my teenagers after I had read the original version. Both of them found the book quick to read and the lessons learned helped them adjust to some major changes in their lives, leaving school, changing plans, being let down and having to rethink etc.

Best book I have ever given to my children!!!

essential
An essential read for everyone. It takes so little time to read, is so much fun and can change so much for the better.