cover image The Teeny Tiny Woman

The Teeny Tiny Woman

Arthur Robins. Candlewick Press (MA), $10.99 (24pp) ISBN 978-0-7636-0444-8

Everything is ""teeny tiny"" in this traditional tale, in which the owner of a teeny tiny bone comes to reclaim it from the woman who has picked it up in the graveyard for her soup. Robins's (illus. of What Use Is a Moose?) retelling inches from one teeny tiny detail to another--""After a teeny tiny while/ the teeny tiny woman/ was woken by a teeny tiny voice""--until her not so teeny ""TAKE IT!"" sends the bone's owner, a fuzzy green fellow, scampering. The cheerful cartoon illustrations, which combine wavery lines with purple watercolor washes, ensure that this story, like The Teeny Tiny Teacher (reviewed below), is more humorous than scary. Touches like the woman's eccentric red hat and polka-dotted outfit, and the smiling cat and duck portraits over her bed, add good-natured humor to a teeny tiny one-joke story. Ages 3-6. (Sept.)