The Tallest of Smalls
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- £8.49
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- £8.49
Publisher Description
An encouraging message for children: When you feel like you’re the smallest of smalls, Jesus’ love can make you feel like the tallest of talls.
A delightful rhyming story about the Too-Smalls who live in the Stiltsville. Every evening a six, the Too-Smalls meet in the square where they hope they’ll be picked to receive stilts to strut about above the stilt-less masses below. They come to see if they matter—if they’re awesome, if they’re pretty, if they’re clever, or funny. Ollie, the smallest of too-smalls, pleas to be picked. He wants to be like the high-ups of Stiltsville who are proud of their stilts, the ultimate status. But once he gets stilts, oh how it hurts when he stumbles and tumbles and loses his stilts. That is . . . until he meets Jesus who chose low over high telling him, "Keep your feet on the ground. You matter already.”
This book for kids coordinates with Max's trade book, Fearless, releasing in September 2009.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Inspired by Lucado's adult book, Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear, this earnest if faltering fable is set in Stiltsville, where residents gather daily to learn who's been chosen to receive stilts that will elevate them above "the less and the least,/ the shy and shier,/ the not-cools and have-nots/ who want to go higher." Among those never selected is Ollie, who is "too common and dull/ for the gang of the cool." When he finally is given a pair of stilts, Ollie smirks as he towers over others, until birds upset his balance and he tumbles to the ground. Jesus appears to urge him to "Keep your feet on the ground,/ refuse to be stilted" and lets Ollie know that he loves him. Busy, earth-toned cartoons and text in an array of sizes and colors make for some cluttered spreads. Though the verse is clunky and awkward from the outset ("Perhaps you don't know / then, maybe you do / the Too Smalls of Stiltsville/ and their story for you"), Lucado's fans will likely respond to his message of choosing humility over popularity. Ages 4 7.
