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I Am Small (2011)

by Emma Dodd(Favorite Author)

3.89 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

054535370X (ISBN13: 9780545353700)

languge

English

genre

Middle Grade & Children's

publisher

Cartwheel Books

review 1: I like the repetition of the text; the illustrations are clean and simple and convey the different meanings without cluttery detail. Points off though for the sappy ending. I would have loved it to end on the second-to-last line: "These things are big and long and deep, and strong and high and far and steep...and I am small. / But you are BIG and you are KIND / When I'm with you I do not mind." The picture that goes with is the penguin chick tucked in between the parent's legs: really nice match, it shows a very positive aspect of being small to balance all the other pages, where being small is a disadvantage.Instead we continue to two more pages: "I may be small but I can see / the biggest thing to you / is me." Not only does this, uninterestingly, echo every single other... more I-love-you-so-much book out there, but it introduces a tricky mental concept for toddlers: how can the little chick be big when the little chick is really small? Yes, we can talk about how "big" means "important" with our little ones...but the other word meanings in the book are pretty straightforward and more or less accessible through the great illustrations. LOVE Emma Dodd's illustrations! PS re the cover: my library's outsourced book processors taped the flap along the edge of the front and back covers, so that the book flaps could be lifted up and away from the illustrations on the endpapers.
review 2: This is adorable and the variety of media is interesting. Some pictures are pure black and white with shadings, others are full color and there are a lot of embellishments of shiny silver that is especially effective in a scene in an ice cave.That said, as someone else noted, the design flaws really take away from the pleasures of this book. The book begins and ends on the inner covers, which is a disaster, especially if you are using this in a library--the cover flaps are taped down in libraries and they obscure parts of the first and last pictures. And while the small format echoes the theme--that the little penguin is small in a big world--a larger format would have done this even better, highlighted the artwork and made this more usable with groups. Disappointing because Dodd is such a talented author/illustrator--think her editors really did her (and us) a disservice here. less

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