Pierre Le Gall

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 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.… (meer)

An early reader book originally published in France, many children today will eat this book up. Constance is a naughty little girl who is connected to her giant cat, Tiny, at the hip. Yet, she doesn't know that her parents conspire to send her to boarding school. How will Constance get out of boarding school? By using her crafty troublemaking skills of course! Children will love the trouble that Constance gets into. Adults who love the books of Neil Gaiman and the films of Tim Burton will adore this book as well.… (meer)