Title: Small, Medium & Large
Author/Illustrator: Jane Monroe Donovan
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Year: 2010
Word Count: 68
It’s day three of PB 14:14 and today I’ve chosen another book from my personal collection. This one is called Small, Medium & Large, and it is virtually wordless. The only words in the story are the words in a young girl’s letters to Santa Clause. Even though it is technically a Christmas book, it is so much more.
For the purposes of the PB 14:14 challenge, I want to discuss Beginnings and Endings first. The story begins with a letter to Santa:
Dear Santa,
How are you? How are the reindeer? I hope you can find our new house. I don’t need any new toys this year but…
We don’t get to see the rest of the letter, but through the illustrations we follow the girl as she mails the letter, decorates the house for Christmas, and comes downstairs on Christmas morning to find three presents waiting for her under the tree. As she opens the small box, out pops a cat. In the medium box, she discovers a dog. And in the large box, she finds a pony.
I want to stop here for a moment to mention how absolutely gorgeous the illustrations are throughout the book, which was the main reason I purchased the book in the first place.
Now, back to the story. The book continues to follow the little girl as she spends the rest of the day with her three new friends. They eat breakfast, play in the snow, make cookies, and hang out in front of the fireplace together.
The story ends with another letter to Santa:
Dear Santa,
I just wanted to say THANK YOU! Thank you for my new best friends. Happy New Year!
Love, Sammy
P.S. Next Christmas, could you please bring a new bone, some carrots, and a toy mouse?
Thus the story begins and ends with a letter, which gives us a sense of closure.
I also want to mention the themes of loneliness and friendship. The little girl, Sammy, is clearly an only child and as her first letter tells us, she just moved to a new house, so we get the sense that she has no friends yet. Even though the letter doesn’t state what she asks Santa for, it is obvious that she wants a friend. It is interesting to note that her parents do not appear at all in the book, which just adds to the feeling of loneliness and quietness at the beginning.
That brings me to another point about Beginnings and Endings. The book starts off very quiet before her new friends arrive, but it also ends very quiet with the last illustration: Sammy and her three animal friends all snug together in her bed asleep, even the pony.
WOW, I am so impressed that you find the books with low word count. I will be following in your footsteps to find these books. Wonderful analysis 😀 Thanks for sharing. I will be reading this on Monday. I already have 8 books to read tomorrow 😀 My Monday is looking pretty full. Thanks for sharing 😀
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Thanks for commenting, Jackie! Hope your Monday is going well. : )
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It is…How about you?
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Yes!
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Good for you. I can’t wait to see what you are reading today. 😀
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This sounds absolutely delightful! Amazing how illustrations tell the story here. Thanks, I will have this one on my list to read/get. The cover illustrations were immediately a draw for me.
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I love the cover illustration too! There are so many amazing covers. I decided to add a new feature to my blog called Incredible Covers. Look for it in the very near future.
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A great idea! Covers contain the lure for the reader, and can be critical to a book’s success.
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68 words! Yikes. I’ll have to check this one out. I’m always working at getting my word counts down (although nowhere near that low).
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Thanks for commenting K! I think this book could be considered wordless, since the 68 words are just in the two letters to Santa, plus I counted the words on the envelope addressed to the North Pole. I can’t see an entire story written in 68 words, that’s for sure.
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