"This exquisite children’s book, which invites children to imagine they were once little enough to ride on the back of the family cat, take baths in a teapot, and use a wooden ruler for a toboggan, is the kind of book I would have saved on the shelf long after my children had grown. Julie Morstad’s elegant illustrations are spare pen-and-ink drawings colored with a soft watercolor wash. Like many great children’s books, this one is worth collecting."
Kimberly Green, writing in Portsmouth Herald, April 2, 2006
Karen Unland, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Sunday, May 14, 2006
When You Were Small by Sara O'Leary
illustrated by Julie Morstad
Simply Read Books
ages 5 and up
32 pp., $19.95
Julie Morstad's spare drawings in When You Were Small could not be more different from the Folies-Bergeres-like swaths in When Cats Go Wrong, but they are no less delightful. Sara O'Leary's story is wonderful, too, and lesson-free, unless you count the implied observation that dads kid around a lot. "Tell me about when I was small," Henry asks his father. What follows is a tall tale about smallness -- Henry taking his pet ant for walks, bathing in a teapot, using a ruler for a toboggan. Is it true, Henry asks? "Well," says his dad, "don't you remember?" Consider this one for every child who looks at Mom for confirmation every time Dad tells a whopper.
Karen Unland is an assignment editor at The Journal. Her four-year-old already knows not to believe a word her father says.
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