Joy Cowley (text) and Giselle Clarkson (illustrator), The Tiny Woman’s Coat, Gecko Press, September 2021, 28 pp., RRP $22.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781760526894
This charming picture book reminded me in a way of ‘who will help me bake the cake’ but in reverse in the sense that the story is cumulative with the tiny woman asking for help to make a coat; no-one refuses her, however, and the final garment is a triumph of co-operation, friendship, and ingenuity.
Each creature and plant she meets along the way contributes something to the coat and its manufacture – leaves, horse hair, a porcupine quill and even the goose contributes by using her beak as scissors. The narrative is linear, following the tiny woman as she gathers the materials and carries more and more items. The illustrations add to the story significantly in this way, showing her with all the materials and ultimately wearing the coat that helps her weather a storm.
The offering from each of the creatures and plants is given in a rhyming couplet with an appropriate word repeated three times as the third line – the porcupine, for example is finished with ‘Sharp, sharp, sharp.’ The tiny woman’s sections start with a repeated statement about her needing a coat and then asking a question about where she will get each of the elements to make the coat. The rhyming and repetition help to make this a good ‘read-aloud’, as well as encouraging children’s participation and learning.
The endpapers are a deep, autumn-leaf yellow drawing us into the title page where the title itself is in yellow, a colour repeated throughout. Also on the title page is a snail inside its shell which uncurls and accompanies the tiny woman on her journey. Children will enjoy following the snail (and finding it on pages where it is almost hidden). In addition, the snail acts as a kind of perspective marker, as it is about half as big as the tiny woman. The penultimate double-page spread that has no words is full of movement denoting the storm and also gives a wonderful perspective on the different sizes of the creatures the tiny woman has met with the horse’s legs towering over her and the goose standing taller than the porcupine but much smaller than the horse.
This is a book to be enjoyed and shared and which incidentally teaches valuable lessons about sharing, friendship, lending a helping hand and even on comparative sizing.
Reviewed by Margot Hillel
