The Teeny Tiny Teacher: A Teeny Tiny Ghost Story - Hardcover

Calmenson (The Principal's New Clothes) combines school and ghost story in this knock-off of the classic folktale. A diminutive teacher and her even more diminutive students find a mysterious bone and are subsequently haunted by a mysterious voice. Calmenson engages readers' attention through her use of repetition and the familiar setting ("She handed out the teeny tiny cups of juice and passed around teeny tiny cookies"). The pace builds to a climax when a "teeny tiny voice" from the closet grows increasingly louder ("Give me my bone!") and the teacher puts a stop to it ("Take it!"). Unfortunately, the juxtaposition of school setting and scary theme seems jarring; the classroom is too cheery to be frightening. The real triumph is Roche's (Loo Loo, Boo and Art You Can Do) rendering of the teeny tiny world inside and outside of the classroom. His uncomplicated style and crayon-bright palette exude sunshine from the double-page spreads. Each gouache illustration brims with charming Lilliputian details: flowers loom above the minute schoolhouse, children play jump rope with a spool of thread, and Scrabble pieces form stepping stones, while inside children sit on dice and at desks made of dominoes. Though the themes may work at cross purposes, readers will likely take pleasure in the teeny tiny visual details. Ages 5-8.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The scary story of the teeny tiny woman has been expanded into an explanatory tale that works well on its own but without the original story's pounce of surprise. Here a teeny tiny teacher is the heroine, and the setting is her tiny classroom. On a walk in the park with her students, the teacher finds a bone, which she pockets and then forgets. She doesn't remember it until a spooky voice from the closet startles her students by demanding the bone back in louder and louder tones. As in the original story, the teeny woman finally replies loudly, ``TAKE IT!'' Unlike the original, that's not the end of the story. The closet door pops open, and a ghost nabs the bone for his ghost puppy, outside the school. Although this version of the tale has lost some of the delicious fright of its parent tale, known for making listeners jump, it could easily become a story-hour favorite. Roche's friendly drawings ingeniously indicate the diminutive size of the teeny tiny teacher and her teeny tiny students by showing domino-topped tables, and stools made of diceit's as if the Borrowers have landed in school. (Picture book. 5-8) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.