Teeny Tiny - Hardcover

PreSchool-Grade 1 DePaola has given a fresh new look to this old, gently shivery English folk tale. In familiar heavy-lined drawings, brightly colored with transparent inks on rich ivory paper, his teeny tiny woman expresses emotions from delight to terror with her simple dot eyes and flat features. Bennett's retelling closely follows that in Joseph Jacobs' 1898 collection English Fairy Tales (Dover), regrettably changing bonnet to hat, but otherwise changes are minor as the teeny tiny woman finds the teeny tiny bone, puts it in her teeny tiny cupboard and finally surrenders it to its rightful owner. Unfortunately, there are no objects in the illustrations with which to compare the teeny tininess of the woman as there are in Barbara Seuling's version (Viking, 1976). However, dePaola adds ghosts and splendid bright colors in his pictures. It's hard to compare dePaola's interpretation with Paul Galdone's (Clarion, 1984) for his drawings are as typically Galdone as dePaola's are dePaola. Either or both would be worthy additions to picture book collections.Virginia Opocensky, Lincoln City Libs . , Nebr.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This old English ghost storyabout the teeny tiny woman who found a teeny tiny bone and took it home to make souphas been retold, almost identically (and with almost an identical titleTeeny Tiny Woman, by Barbara Seuling, Paul Galdone and others, and now by Bennett. The rhythmic words are wonderful for reading aloud, and the story builds as the voice from the cupboards repeats, each time slightly louder, "Give me my bone!" DePaola's illustrations are colorful, cheerful and childlike, but a bit static, and lack both the eeriness and expressiveness of Galdone's pictures and the teeny tiny coziness of Seuling's artwork. Wide-eyed ghosts follow the teeny tiny woman around, from the first pages to the moment when one of them snatches back his bone, but these don't impart any new meaning to the story. In fact, it would make more sense if they started following her after she picks up the bonewhy before? This version is mostly for dePaola fans.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.