Identify this cheesy book, please

Cafe Society
1

I’m remembering this scene from a book I read ages ago, I was probably a child when I read it, so it was probably published before 1990 or so. The scene is of a mouse or gerbil that is enticed to run in its exercise wheel by a piece of cheese mounted outside the wheel. Just to make sure the mouse understands, the cheese is helpfully labeled with a sign that says CHEESE. The wheel might have been part of some Rube Goldberg device, but I’m less sure about that part than I am of the cheese labeled with the sign.

What book did this appear in?

2

Sounds like something from Beverly Cleary’s Ralph S. Mouse books.

3

I’ve never read any of those, so I don’t think that’s it. I believe the mouse was an ordinary one, and the joke was the mouse couldn’t read the sign next to the cheese.

4

Bumping this again in hopes of finding an answer. I’m not positive, but I think cheese enticing the mouse to run in its wheel was intended as the main trigger point to get the rube goldberg device running.

5

nvm