Idina Menzel says ‘Loud Mouse,’ children’s book she wrote with her sister, may inspire an album

Idina Menzel and her sister Cara Mentzel have collaborated on a new children’s picture book called Loud Mouse, about a young mouse named Dee who’s able to be her best self when she sings. Idina has written and recorded an original song to go with the book called “The Loud Mouse Song,” which is streaming now — and she says she could see making an entire Loud Mouse album in the future.

“I wanted to have a song that accompanied the book that kids and their parents could just sing…for days…ad nauseum, you know?” Idina laughs. Referring to her inescapable Frozen hit “Let It Go,” she jokes, “Because that’s what I like to do. I like to be the voice of songs that parents just love me for!”

Cara says the relationship between Dee and her sister Cara Lee in the book mirrors the “supportive” relationship she had with Idina growing up, when “being adjacent to this big talent was a joy and an adrenaline rush.”

Meanwhile, Idina thinks Loud Mouse is “in the tradition of” her Frozen character Elsa — and of her Wicked character, Elphaba — in the sense that it “gives [kids] the permission to be your biggest, bravest, loudest self.”

“I think that that sort of all comes together and is very meaningful for them, and for us,” she notes.

The sisters have already written a sequel to Loud Mouse, and Idina tells ABC Audio, “I’d like to start curating a list of children’s music, and writing children’s music” for the book series.

Idina explains that she discovered that while touring the world singing “Let It Go, “There’s just nothing better for a performer than…to be able to hold the microphone out and have [kids] sing your song, and to do that with them, and with their parents.”