Scan barcode
maidmarianlib's review against another edition
3.0
Very imaginative, quirky illustrations and characters
perdiana's review against another edition
5.0
Cane Nero è un grosso animale, certo, ma non solo: rappresenta la Paura. Grossa, minacciosa e sconosciuta, se sai come prenderla, se sai ridimensionarla, alla fine, non è poi così terribile, anzi: Cane Nero è solo un cane giocherellone!
larrys's review against another edition
4.0
The illustrations are so beautiful in this author/illustrator picture book I suspected the story wouldn't quite reach the same level. Readers will have varied responses to this, but for me, the story is structurally fine but the message problematic: Children are taught to face their fears head-on, using the metaphor of a big dog outside the house. That's fine. The problem is, I've been trying to teach my kid the opposite when it comes to dogs, as there are a lot of iffy ones in our neighbourhood: If a dog looks scary, it probably is! I'm therefore left wishing the dog could have been some mythical, non-existent creature. The final scene shows a young child hugging the dog in a way that strange dogs should never, ever be hugged, as it's a sign of domination, and little kids tend to be right at eye-level too. Even when picture books are to be read at the metaphorical level, we can't forget that the literal level doesn't suddenly cease to exist.
So for entirely practical/safety purposes I do have a couple of issues with this book.
ALLEGORY AND SYMBOL
There may be a good symbolic reason for using a black dog, however, as the black dog has been used as a metaphor for depression and other mental illness, i.e. The Black Dog Institute. I have absolutely no idea if this were intended by the author/illustrator, but because of the black dog connection I can't read this book as anything other than an allegory for agoraphobia/anxiety. Would a reader outside Australia make the same connection? Doesn't matter. Let's look at the story through this lens and see if it holds up.
Agoraphobia isn't contagious insofar as I know, so it would be unusual for an entire family to be simultaneously terrified of going outside. For this reason, I'm interpreting the family as 'different aspects of the same individual', in much the same way as the Winnie-the-Pooh characters are each different facets of a child's single personality. Sometimes this person looks out of the window and is not quite so scared -- on other days the size of the menace is overwhelming. But there is one small part inside this individual which has sufficient bravery to face the world. This is the classic mouse tale trope, in which the smallest character is ironically the bravest. (And anyone who's ever had a mouse infestation knows they're not timid at all -- mice are stupid brave for their size, relying on speed more than smarts!) This technique definitely lends the feel of 'fable' to this story, with thanks to Aesop, and The Lion and the (Stupid Brave) Mouse.
By going out into the world and practising exposure therapy, the small child in this story shrinks the black dog down to size. Again, a metaphor for mental illness: mental illness is always a part of you, but it can be reduced to a manageable level.
A MINIATURE WORLD
The presence of a massive dog temporarily turns this family into miniatures, of the type you've seen in The Borrowers and Stuart Little. There are specific narrative reasons for making use of miniatures.
A miniature has three main uses in a story:
1. It lets the audience see the world of the story as a whole.
2. It allows the author to express various aspects, or facets, of a character.
3. It shows the exercise of power, often of tyranny.
-- John Truby, Anatomy of Story
All three reasons are at play here: We see the warm interior/foggy, cold exterior all at once; we see each member of the family react differently to the same event; we can easily imagine how scared we would be at this tyrannical creature outside our home.
JUXTAPOSITION OF SETTING
The snowy, ethereal setting is a brilliant choice, and is in stark contrast to the warm, but oddly grotesque interior. There's something steampunk about this house, and the scene of the bathroom and playground, with the rivets and steel, remind me very much of Shaun Tan's The Lost Thing.
Though Pinfold has his own distinctive style, the colour choice, too, is reminiscent of Shaun Tan, especially when you look at the accent colours. Pinfold makes use of inset thumbnails, too, and in this book we have tiny sepia drawings decorating the text. It's tempting to skip over these thumbnails because the eye tends to linger on the full-colour spreads, but if you go back and examine them closely, these thumbnails offer the 'alternative view' of the story: While the full colour spreads in the first half of the story depict only the inside of the house and a little of what can be seen through the window, the thumbnails show us the massive dog outside in a long shot view of the tall, skinny house. They add to the narrative in other ways, too, so it's worth a proper squint.
There's something gothic about this house. It's a three-storied structure with an attic which would never get approved by any local council, and must have therefore come from another era. This is the trope of the Terrifying House. But this house is both terrifying and warm:
Opposite the warm house, the terrifying house is usually a house that has gone over the line from cocoon to prison. In the best stories of this kind, the house is terrifying because it is an outgrowth of the great weakness and need of the character. This house is the hero’s biggest fear made manifest. In the extreme, the character’s mind has rotted in some way, and the house too is in ruins. But it is no less powerful a prison.
-- John Truby, Anatomy of Story
It's warm because it's cosy, with the roaring fire and comfort of family. It's cheery like a rainbow, in fact, with each room having its own dominant hue. Orange kitchen, yellow bathroom, green bedroom, pink on the outside...
But those accoutrements scattered around -- the stone animals and stuffed toys with their staring eyes, the cluttered chaos, the soap-holder that looks almost like a mechanical hand reaching into the grimy old bath, the red tricycle that will always scare anyone who ever watched Saw -- there's something definitely spooky here. And of course your warm house is spooky... when you can never leave. Even the mother looks a lot like a Marionette as she clutches the jug in the orange image above. Again with the mental illness symbolism: The Unknown Fear controlling you, as if via strings.
WEATHER SYMBOLISM
Shaun Tan's The Lost Thing -- as well as his other work -- features industrial smoke and city smog, but here the outside world is shrouded in a clean, forest mist -- a great choice given the accepted symbolism of fog. In fiction, fog equals obfuscation and mystery. In Blackdog I think it also has connections to 'mental fug' and not being able to see more than a couple of metres ahead, but ploughing on anyway.
WEIRD THING I DON'T GET
What on earth is a Big Jeffy, though? I expected to be rewarded with the answer after looking closely at the pictures, and I did see upon a close, second read a child's sketch of Jeffy on the sideboard, but in the end I resorted to the internet and learned that Big Jeffy is off Sesame Street. His inclusion in this story puzzles me. Big Jeffy is a member of Little Jerry and the Monotones, supplying bass back-up for the group.
Maybe the author is a particular fan of Sesame Street and will reference a muppet in every picture book? Chris Van Allsburg puts a little white dog in all of his books. (It's not even his own dog -- it was his brother-in-law's!) I haven't read Pinfold's other work so I can't tell if they also include Sesame Street characters. Also, I wouldn't be brave enough to try those guys on copyright. It's possible that Pinfold's Big Jeffy has no connection to the minor Sesame Street character at all. But Sesame Street has such a different vibe, I can't understand the intertextuality in this children's horror story.
So for entirely practical/safety purposes I do have a couple of issues with this book.
ALLEGORY AND SYMBOL
There may be a good symbolic reason for using a black dog, however, as the black dog has been used as a metaphor for depression and other mental illness, i.e. The Black Dog Institute. I have absolutely no idea if this were intended by the author/illustrator, but because of the black dog connection I can't read this book as anything other than an allegory for agoraphobia/anxiety. Would a reader outside Australia make the same connection? Doesn't matter. Let's look at the story through this lens and see if it holds up.
Agoraphobia isn't contagious insofar as I know, so it would be unusual for an entire family to be simultaneously terrified of going outside. For this reason, I'm interpreting the family as 'different aspects of the same individual', in much the same way as the Winnie-the-Pooh characters are each different facets of a child's single personality. Sometimes this person looks out of the window and is not quite so scared -- on other days the size of the menace is overwhelming. But there is one small part inside this individual which has sufficient bravery to face the world. This is the classic mouse tale trope, in which the smallest character is ironically the bravest. (And anyone who's ever had a mouse infestation knows they're not timid at all -- mice are stupid brave for their size, relying on speed more than smarts!) This technique definitely lends the feel of 'fable' to this story, with thanks to Aesop, and The Lion and the (Stupid Brave) Mouse.
By going out into the world and practising exposure therapy, the small child in this story shrinks the black dog down to size. Again, a metaphor for mental illness: mental illness is always a part of you, but it can be reduced to a manageable level.
A MINIATURE WORLD
The presence of a massive dog temporarily turns this family into miniatures, of the type you've seen in The Borrowers and Stuart Little. There are specific narrative reasons for making use of miniatures.
A miniature has three main uses in a story:
1. It lets the audience see the world of the story as a whole.
2. It allows the author to express various aspects, or facets, of a character.
3. It shows the exercise of power, often of tyranny.
-- John Truby, Anatomy of Story
All three reasons are at play here: We see the warm interior/foggy, cold exterior all at once; we see each member of the family react differently to the same event; we can easily imagine how scared we would be at this tyrannical creature outside our home.
JUXTAPOSITION OF SETTING
The snowy, ethereal setting is a brilliant choice, and is in stark contrast to the warm, but oddly grotesque interior. There's something steampunk about this house, and the scene of the bathroom and playground, with the rivets and steel, remind me very much of Shaun Tan's The Lost Thing.
Though Pinfold has his own distinctive style, the colour choice, too, is reminiscent of Shaun Tan, especially when you look at the accent colours. Pinfold makes use of inset thumbnails, too, and in this book we have tiny sepia drawings decorating the text. It's tempting to skip over these thumbnails because the eye tends to linger on the full-colour spreads, but if you go back and examine them closely, these thumbnails offer the 'alternative view' of the story: While the full colour spreads in the first half of the story depict only the inside of the house and a little of what can be seen through the window, the thumbnails show us the massive dog outside in a long shot view of the tall, skinny house. They add to the narrative in other ways, too, so it's worth a proper squint.
There's something gothic about this house. It's a three-storied structure with an attic which would never get approved by any local council, and must have therefore come from another era. This is the trope of the Terrifying House. But this house is both terrifying and warm:
Opposite the warm house, the terrifying house is usually a house that has gone over the line from cocoon to prison. In the best stories of this kind, the house is terrifying because it is an outgrowth of the great weakness and need of the character. This house is the hero’s biggest fear made manifest. In the extreme, the character’s mind has rotted in some way, and the house too is in ruins. But it is no less powerful a prison.
-- John Truby, Anatomy of Story
It's warm because it's cosy, with the roaring fire and comfort of family. It's cheery like a rainbow, in fact, with each room having its own dominant hue. Orange kitchen, yellow bathroom, green bedroom, pink on the outside...
But those accoutrements scattered around -- the stone animals and stuffed toys with their staring eyes, the cluttered chaos, the soap-holder that looks almost like a mechanical hand reaching into the grimy old bath, the red tricycle that will always scare anyone who ever watched Saw -- there's something definitely spooky here. And of course your warm house is spooky... when you can never leave. Even the mother looks a lot like a Marionette as she clutches the jug in the orange image above. Again with the mental illness symbolism: The Unknown Fear controlling you, as if via strings.
WEATHER SYMBOLISM
Shaun Tan's The Lost Thing -- as well as his other work -- features industrial smoke and city smog, but here the outside world is shrouded in a clean, forest mist -- a great choice given the accepted symbolism of fog. In fiction, fog equals obfuscation and mystery. In Blackdog I think it also has connections to 'mental fug' and not being able to see more than a couple of metres ahead, but ploughing on anyway.
WEIRD THING I DON'T GET
What on earth is a Big Jeffy, though? I expected to be rewarded with the answer after looking closely at the pictures, and I did see upon a close, second read a child's sketch of Jeffy on the sideboard, but in the end I resorted to the internet and learned that Big Jeffy is off Sesame Street. His inclusion in this story puzzles me. Big Jeffy is a member of Little Jerry and the Monotones, supplying bass back-up for the group.
Maybe the author is a particular fan of Sesame Street and will reference a muppet in every picture book? Chris Van Allsburg puts a little white dog in all of his books. (It's not even his own dog -- it was his brother-in-law's!) I haven't read Pinfold's other work so I can't tell if they also include Sesame Street characters. Also, I wouldn't be brave enough to try those guys on copyright. It's possible that Pinfold's Big Jeffy has no connection to the minor Sesame Street character at all. But Sesame Street has such a different vibe, I can't understand the intertextuality in this children's horror story.
cpoole's review against another edition
4.0
2013 ALSC Notable winners
Pinfold, Levi. Black Dog. Somerville, MA: Templar Books, 2012. Print. 32 p.
The Hope family wakes up to find a big black dog outside their home. The dog seems to grow, as does the fear of it, as each family member sees the dog. Mr. Hope first describes the dog as the size of a tiger, and then lastly it is described as the size of a dinosaur. The whole family learns what courage means when the youngest family member, Small, is brave enough to go outside and run around with the dog. The black dog shrinks as he must fit into small spaces Small is running through. The young girl and the, now normal sized, dog return home to a scared family. The illustrations truly make the book, as they perfectly go along with the story. The concept of fear is explored through a gothic-like feel of the pictures. Young readers will no doubt be familiar with the concept of fears. Ask them to remember a time when they felt afraid of something, but later found out there was no reason to be scared.
Pinfold, Levi. Black Dog. Somerville, MA: Templar Books, 2012. Print. 32 p.
The Hope family wakes up to find a big black dog outside their home. The dog seems to grow, as does the fear of it, as each family member sees the dog. Mr. Hope first describes the dog as the size of a tiger, and then lastly it is described as the size of a dinosaur. The whole family learns what courage means when the youngest family member, Small, is brave enough to go outside and run around with the dog. The black dog shrinks as he must fit into small spaces Small is running through. The young girl and the, now normal sized, dog return home to a scared family. The illustrations truly make the book, as they perfectly go along with the story. The concept of fear is explored through a gothic-like feel of the pictures. Young readers will no doubt be familiar with the concept of fears. Ask them to remember a time when they felt afraid of something, but later found out there was no reason to be scared.
jmshirtz's review against another edition
5.0
Love, love, love the story and especially the illustrations! Masterfully done. I have a new favorite author/illustrator to read!
emkoshka's review against another edition
3.0
An unsettling story that reminded me of The Wolves in the Walls. Levi Pinfold's photoreal illustrations are stunning, and the little details of toys and animals are a cute addition. I feel there's some allegorical meaning to this, given that 'black dog' is a phrase used to denote depression, but I couldn't see much more in this story except that it is often the smallest among us who can conquer our greatest fears.
heypretty52's review
5.0
Perfect and beautiful and magical. Absolutely wonderful art encapsulating an enchanting tale of trust and friendship.
greysonk's review
5.0
This is such an adorable picture book! I loved the illustrations and the story was fun. Also, I used to have a dog who looked just like the dog in the book so I'm kind of biased lol.
libscote's review
3.0
I liked this book. I would use it in a story time about helping children face their fears.
reader44ever's review against another edition
3.0
While I liked this story, there was one image in particular which lowered the rating for me. This was the image where Small confronts the gigantic black dog outside the house for the first time. This image was so large it was hard to see that it was a dog, and as a result it was a little scary even to me, and I'm an adult! I also didn't like that Small's family didn't prevent her from going outside to confront a strange dog, let alone a gigantic dog about which her father called the police. Needless to say, I don't think I'll be getting this title for my nieces. The redeeming parts of the story - the way Small refused to be afraid and coaxed the dog into becoming smaller, the way her family conquered their fears after meeting the smaller dog, and the rest of the illustrations - weren't enough to change this opinion.