Teeny Tiny [Paperback]

Jill Bennett (Author), Tomie dePaola (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 29, 1997

When the teeny tiny woman goes for a walk, she comes upon a teeny tiny bone that's perfect for making soup. Little does she know that the ghostly owners of the bone will follow her home for a teeny tiny bit of terror! The rhythmic words are wonderful for reading aloud, and dePaola's illustrations are colorful, cheerful and childlike. --Publishers Weekly The repetitive pattern of the words and naive simplicity of the pictures should make the book popular with very young children. --Horn Book

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

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 text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 32 pages
• Publisher: Puffin (December 29, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0698116135
• ISBN-13: 978-0698116139
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.2 x 0.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #330,796 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars strange tale of cannibalism, July 23, 2009

By 

Someday sails (boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teeny Tiny (Paperback)

this is a very strange story. I found myself furrowing my brow while reading it to my daughter and thinking to myself, " is this about what i think it is about?" Yes it is indeed, this is a story of a woman who takes a bone from a graveyard to make soup with it and then the ghost of the person who's bone it was comes to haunt her. I don't come from a theistic perspective but I still think the cannibalistic theme is a "teeny tiny" bit strange in a children's story! Silence of the lambs for kids. :-)

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun and rhythmic reading as well as listening., October 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Teeny Tiny (Paperback)

My boys just loved this book. Even now weeks after reading it to them, they recite it and start to giggle.

4.0 out of 5 stars Classic ghost story, July 20, 2008

By 

Ulyyf "Connie" (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teeny Tiny (Paperback)

This is a classic English ghost story, in the vein of "The Golden Arm", where eventually you end up screaming at your unsuspecting vict- uh, child.

Great fun, not much more to it than that. If you want to read the story beforehand you can look it up on google.