'Philippa Pearce - one of the finest children's writers of the 20th century' - Guardian In A DOG SO SMALL young Ben Blewitt is desperate for a dog. He's picked out the biggest and best dogs from the books in the library - and he just knows he's going to get one for his birthday. Ben is excited when the big day arrives, but he receives a picture of a dog instead of a real one! But the imagination can be a powerful thing, and when Ben puts his to work, his adventures really begin! Philippa Pearce grew up in a millhouse near ...
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'Philippa Pearce - one of the finest children's writers of the 20th century' - Guardian In A DOG SO SMALL young Ben Blewitt is desperate for a dog. He's picked out the biggest and best dogs from the books in the library - and he just knows he's going to get one for his birthday. Ben is excited when the big day arrives, but he receives a picture of a dog instead of a real one! But the imagination can be a powerful thing, and when Ben puts his to work, his adventures really begin! Philippa Pearce grew up in a millhouse near Cambridge and read English and history at Girton College. She was a scriptwriter-producer for the BBC, a children's book editor and reviewer, a lecturer, a storyteller and freelance writer for radio and newspapers as well as writing some of the best-loved books of the 20th century. She won a Carnegie Medal for TOM'S MIDNIGHT GARDEN and a Whitbread Prize for THE BATTLE OF BUBBLE AND SQUEAK also published by Puffin Books. She died in December, 2006.
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Seller's Description:
Very good in very good dust jacket. Hbk 1st edition 142pp illustr dj mildly shelfworn with a missing piece at the rear top but not price-clipped ($2.95) and now in protective sleeve otherwise an excellent clean tight unmarked copy.
I first read this book more than thirty years ago. I remember looking at the cover and feeling disappointed. I read Biggles books and this seemed so removed from this that I wondered why my mother had bought it for me. Yet, I read and re-read it. It became the book to read when I was ill in bed.
However, reading it again I can see that I never read it. Not deeply. I missed so much. The story of Ben's desire for a dog and the disappointment at receiving an embroidered picture of a dog instead, is very clear. It is the skill of Philippa Pearce that she wove in so much more, the consequences of growing old, being a child in a large family and the selfishness of children that can drive them into self-willed isolation as they immerse themselves in their dreams, that makes this a book so much more than a book only for children.
For me, returning to it so many years after first reading it has given me, not just the chance to read once more a wonderful piece of literature, it has also shone light on aspects of my own childhood that had lain long forgotten. With the perspective that adult life brings, these aspects can be seen, not as moments confined to childhood but as steps on the long journey to being who we are.
