When You Were Small

We love both of Sarah O'Leary's books; the illustrations are lovely too. A wonderful baby shower gift!

This unassuming little book has such clever writing and imaginative scenes that it's close to perfect. A simple two-joke setup propels the ever-spiraling absurd humor: First, that a "small" child would be really, REALLY tiny, and, second, the pun resulting from the confusion of small and young." Every night young Henry asks a common kid question: "Dad...tell me about when I was small." Nearby adults generally smile at this question, because they quite reasonably interpret"small" as "young," and the child questioner is still pretty young (and small). IT becomes one of those awww-laden moments when the adults sneak little isn't-he-cute winks and glances at each other. There will be none of this sentimentality for author Sara O'Leary though. She launches into her mildly absurd humor through the father, who regales his audience (and yours) with reverse-Paul Bunyan tales of Henry, when he was, indeed, very, very small: "When you were small we used you as a chess piece, because our chess board was missing one of the knoghts and you were the perfect size." Not THAT's small, so small that the expected story about Henry as a much younger child is quickly dashed. Befitting the intimate story and Henry's diminutive size, the pictures are simple and soft (with cross-hatched lines for texture), illustrating the text with a few small objects and one small Henry. For example, against a shadowed tablecloth covered with a small rubber duckie, tiny bath towel and shirt, we see Henry about to jump into a striped green teapot twice his size! "When you were small we used to give you baths in the teapot, and when you were done we could just tip you over and pour you out." There are fourteen such vignettes, with enough variety in scene and length to maintain interest: SOme of them are simple one-liners ("When you were small we brushed your hair with a toothbrush") and others a bit more involved. ALthough the book is very funny, there's a slightly muted tone stemming form the matter-of-fact way that the dad talks to Henry. The book is so funny thatI can't guarantee it will be a good bedtime read, but there's a slightly muted tone, stemming form the matter-of-fact way the dad answers Henry, that gives the book lulling to sleep potential (especially after repeated readings take away some of the initial surprises!). O'Leary handles the boy's question, "is all that true," quite expertly (the Dad adroitly dodges the question with his reply, "Well, don't you remember". It's just one of the many small details done just right in this small gem of a book. Highly recommended, and will go on my annual list of best pictures books I've read during the year.

Pity the small publisher in this age of global conglomerates and massive buyouts. In a time of Harcourts and Harper Collins, and Antheneums it's almost impossible for the little guy (the little guy in this case being Simply Read Books) to make any kind of a lasting impression on the marketplace. Worse than all of this is the snobbery involved in criticizing small publishers. I admit freely that when I picked up, "When You Were Small", I looked at it long and hard with an eye towards finding any faults it might have. Not all small publishers are good, after all, and not all of their books readworthy. Simply Read Books is different, though, and "When You Were Small", is infinitely readworthy. An unassuming title with a charming presence, great use of wry commentary, and some really outstanding pen and ink illustrations. "When You Were Small", reminds all of us that sometimes the smallest publishers are the ones who find the best new talent around. Every night, we are told, Henry and his dad sit down, "and have a chat". Henry asks his dad to tell him what he was like when he was small and dad does so. The only thing is, dad seems to be a bit of a literal sort. The first thing he tells Henry is, "When you were small you used to have a pet ant and you would take him out for walks on a leash". And here we see Henry, no younger than before, but tiny enough to walk an ant as if it were a particularly frisky dog. With each page we learn more about what "little" Henry's life was like. Sometimes it's straightforward, as when we're told, "When you were small we took the toy castle out of the aquarium and you were king of it". Other times the book acquires a dry wit, saying things like, "... your mother once lost you in the bottom of her purse. When she found you again, you were clinging to an earring she'd lost three years before". We hear about how Henry would eat, use a ruler when it came to tobogganing, and take a bath. Near the end of the book Henry's father notes, "we wanted to call you Hieronymous but it was too big a name for you and so we shortened it to Henry". And when Henry asks if all of this is true (as I am sure he asks every night) his dad simply says, "Well ... don't you remember?". With a steady hand O'Leary parcels out the information in this book in a familiar form. Each section that discusses Henry's previously tiny state begins with the repeating phrase, "When you were small". I think it was the understated humor that really won me over to this book, though. There's a wonderful moment when Henry would ride around in his father's breast pocket. "Your little head would just stick out and your little hands would grip onto the edge of the cloth. Actually you ripped a lot of my shirts that way". It's a small statement, but it makes the reader suddenly wonder if all the dad's stories were true after all. I mean, that's a pretty realistic detail to include. Illustrator Julie Morstad further confuses the issue when

Everything about this book, I love. The words, the message, the illustrations, the gorgeous cover, everything. This book is endearingly quirky and charming. I fell in love with it. I can only hope they write one with a little girl as the main character!