Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* This fable about confronting and conquering fear should hook anyone who sees Pinfold's cover illustration, which depicts a Gothic-looking house, a tiny child, and a paw print the size of a tank. The story begins one snowy morning when Mr. Hope looks outside to see a dog the size of a tiger. That assessment is upgraded to the size of an elephant when Mrs. Hope sees it, and the size of a Tyrannosaurus rex when little Adeline sees it. (A huge golden eye stares through the window next to where Adeline brushes her teeth.) The family's solution? Turn out the lights, close the curtains, and hide beneath the covers. Thankfully, the youngest, Small, goes outside to meet the towering dog, whose big wet nose covers a full two-page spread. She gets the dog to chase her, using rhymes to convince the animal to get progressively smaller to fit through various obstacles: You can't follow where I go, / unless you shrink, or don't you know? Pinfold's lavish, Van Allsburglike illustrations, which juxtapose tiny black-and-white sketches with big, detailed, frozen-in-time paintings, are quirky, funny, and often heart-stopping. Part David and Goliath, part Gingerbread Man, this UK import is a shot of courage for those who need it most.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Pinfold's debut, The Django (2010), featured striking artwork, but lacked direction. His sophomore effort succeeds where the earlier work stumbled. Small Hope, the youngest member of her family, ventures outdoors one snowy morning to confront a monstrous black dog that's been terrifying her parents and siblings. In a striking spread, Pinfold paints a tiny Small Hope gazing up at a dog the size of Mount Rushmore, its black snout looming malevolently. "Golly, you ARE big!" she says, unafraid. "What are you doing here, you guffin?" She takes off across the snowy ground with a rhyming taunt: "You can't follow where I go,/ unless you shrink, or don't you know?" The dog pursues Small Hope from spread to spread, shrinking as he goes, and the pair arrives home to find the rest of the family comically armed for battle with kitchen utensils. Pinfold's interiors are crammed with quirky detail, and his small sepia vignettes, which cluster around the story's text, are an elegant detail. More crucially, the story stays focused, the pacing is strong, and Small Hope is as charming as she is brave. Ages 4-7. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-6-This tale of fear grown wild will ignite the imaginations of many children. Like a thriller, it starts with a threat: a big black dog is outside. As each family member awakens and notices it, it grows as big as a Jeffy. (Look for clues of that beast in drawings strewn about the house.) Structured with outstandingly toned tempera paintings on one side, each family member color-coded and carefully wrought sepia vignettes interspersed with text reminiscent of the work of Shaun Tan on the other, the action advances quickly into a chase. Small, the youngest of the artistic family living in a vertical-gabled red house in an eerily green snow-covered forest, sees the dog for what it is-she calls the MacGuffin a guffin-but agrees he is BIG. She could fit in one of its nostrils! Small makes him catch her if he can. She taunts him down a size and makes him squeeze into a slide, under a footbridge. The visuals go cinemascope during the chase, but resume their structure when they enter the cat flap. An ode to scale, to the portholes and bay windows of Victorian architecture, the poetry of family chatter, and steampunk elegance of antique hot-water heaters, all are here for young eyes to luxuriate in and imagine that they are courageous Small with their family's love shining down like rainbows. Fear, fun, and just dripping with beauty, this title will pair perfectly with Neil Gaiman's The Wolves in the Walls (HarperCollins, 2003).-Sara Lissa Paulson, American Sign Language and English Lower School, New York City (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
A tall pink house stands in a snowy forest; outside is a big black dog. One by one the members of the Hope family see it and cower, and with every sighting the dog grows in size and fearsomeness until it is larger than the house itself. Finally it falls to the familys youngest member, little Small, to address the problem. The diminutive girl meets the by-now enormous dog head-on and coaxes it to friendly, regular-sized compliance through bravery and a song. In most spreads, small sepia panels illuminate the action on one page with a bright, full-color, full-page drawing opposite. The Hopes house is a hodgepodge of homey detail, rendered with exquisite texture and cluttered composition, where readers will enjoy searching among the dolls and decorations for repeating characters and parallel stories. The traditional feel of the cumulative telling and the arts surreal precision and fanciful decay combine to offer a curious metaphorical consideration of what it means to be afraid and what it takes to conquer those fears. thom barthelmess (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Pinfold's story has a timeless quality despite its entirely original flair, with sumptuous paintings and thumbnail embellishments adding narrative and descriptive content. One by one, the Hope family spies a black dog outside their home, each person describing it as larger and more fearsome than the next. They all proceed to hide from the dog, until "the youngest member of the Hope family, called Small (for short)," steps outside to confront it herself. While her family cowers inside, Small bravely approaches the shaggy beast, who appears quite large indeed in the tempera paintings. A sense of folkloric magic underscores the confrontation as this youngest of three siblings cajoles the dog to follow her on a journey through the woods, under a bridge, over a frozen pond and through a playground. All along, she entreats it to shrink in size, and it does, until it is small enough to fit through a doggy door back at her house. Once they are inside, Small's family welcomes the dog and praises her bravery. "There was nothing to be scared of," she succinctly replies. The closing scene showing Small and the dog cozy by the fire, alongside a thumbnail portrait of the family by the text, leaves readers with a satisfying image of familial contentment. A great pick for storytime, bedtime, anytime. (Picture book. 3-7)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
