Constance and Tiny

I am definitely not one of those adults who thinks that children's books need be all "sweetness and light," with cuddly animal characters, a heartwarming message, and a satisfactorily happy ending. No, I firmly believe that children need the dark and disturbing, whether that be the forest (and wolf) confronted by Little Red Riding Hood, the steady stream of disasters that overtake the children of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, or the obnoxiously bratty behavior of spoiled little kids like Junie B. Jones.

One of my favorite literary characters as a girl was Jack Gantos' Rotten Ralph - a thoroughly wicked feline who, over the course of many books, utterly fails to reform (and this, despite the love of his human show more companion, Sarah) - so I really expected to enjoy Pierre Le Gall's Constance and Tiny, which also features a less than angelic cat-girl duo. Unfortunately, I didn't, and I'm at something of a loss to understand why. I did like the way that Constance's narrative, in which she complains of her evil parents, and the torture she endures at school, is contradicted by the illustrations. Young readers will undoubtedly have fun picking out the inconsistencies.

But although I can imagine others enjoying the humor of Constance and Tiny, I was curiously unmoved. The heroine was gleefully nasty, but she wasn't really entertaining. Nor did the cartoon-style illustrations by Éric Héliot really appeal to me. Ah well - this just wasn't to my taste, and de gustibus non est disputandum. show less

This book is filled with hilarious irony. The striking contrast in the descriptions within the text compared to the pictures make this book so silly. The pictures are simple and bold. There were one to two sentences on each page and simple sentence structure. This book would be fitting for those who are just transitioning from picture books to easy-readers.

Constance and her ginormous cat, Tiny, are mischevious, trouble-making little misfits. She is always sure to do the exact opposite of what is expected of her like any good little girl would do!