One Snowy Eve

Jointly reviewed on Tyler's request. :-) Ellie: "A children's classic to rate among the most heartwarming of the genre. The story of the poky little puppy with his innocuous mischief, mixed bag of luck, love of desserts, and fondness for digging holes under fences, is a delight." Tyler: "It's nice!" Unanimous agreement from two lovers of the finest in Little Golden Book literature...

...but the Poky Little Puppy is beloved by children of every generation. Early this summer I saw "Poky Little Puppy" t-shirts for adults being sold at a popular national retail chain near NYU. A few weeks later I still couldn't stop thinking about it, so I went back to buy one. They were all sold out. The store manager (who also was in his 30s) told me that all of their stores were sold out, both retail and online. People kept coming in asking if there was a wait list. I asked him if they were all college students, but he surprised me by saying that there were a fair number of adults. We started talking about our favorite books as children, and both had a good laugh over the fact that we'd loved the Poky Little Puppy as much as any of the classics by Sendak or Silverstein, but that as adults, we'd become blind adherents to the ratings, erroneously assuming that the Poky Little Puppy wasn't "real" children's literature because it won no awards or praise from the critics. As I was walking out, I turned and asked him if he remembered the book's refrain whenever the puppies rolled down the hill. He grinned and, in unison, we both said: "And down they went to see, roly-poly, pell-mell, tumble-bumble, till they came to the green grass; and there they stopped short." Needless to say, this book now has a place on the bookshelf of every child in my family--and they all love it just as much as I did.

This was the first children's book to write honestly about the issue of pokyness. The subject is introduced in a gentle manner so as not to unduly embarrass a young listener who is struggling with pokyness. As someone else put it, "the puppy is the child who has failed to progress beyond the mirror-stage, surely." I couldn't agree more, or recommend this more highly for any parents with poky children.

This is such a cute story! A curious little puppy just can't be bothered to do as he's told. I recommend reading this book to your children and then making them some rice pudding. They will appreciate the connection. (I did.)

This is the sweetest little book. I read it when I was a little girl, and now I am going to buy it for my soon-to-be-born baby. I have always thought of the poky little puppy as a hero for the ones who stop to smell the roses.