Helpful Score: 1
Reviewed by Candace Cunard for TeensReadToo.com
The premise of IN THE SMALL is fairly simple. Suddenly, a blue light washes over the entire earth and all of humanity is reduced to one-sixth of its original size. Nothing but humans are affected, and those who do survive the initial transformation are left to deal with the chaos of a world built for people too big. Suddenly, even the smallest animals and the simplest natural phenomena can cause great danger.
The story revolves around a brother and sister, Mouse and Beatrix (Beat for short), who together gather up groups of survivors and marshal them to create a new society. Beat is at home with her mother and grandfather when the transformation occurs, and the three of them begin to turn their house into a sustainable community, inviting neighbors and strangers alike to share the space with them.
Mouse is in the city working at his father's business when the transformation occurs. He has a talent for seeing things before they happen, or at least sensing them, something that his father has never understood. But even his father cannot deny the accuracy of the premonition that hits Mouse an hour before the transformation, and afterwards, Mouse becomes the natural leader of a group of people who make a pilgrimage through the city and back to the house that Beat is busy turning into a thriving community.
The one thing that makes this book stand out from all of the other stories of humans suddenly shrunken and at the mercy of nature and the elements is the graphic novel format. Hague's illustrations add to the sense of terror and urgency felt by the characters whose formerly-docile world has quickly turned against them. In addition, his characters present several musings about the cause of this transformation, several of which appear to be environmental in nature. Beat suggests that this is a way of Mother Earth getting back at a species that has abused her for too long.
The cause of the transformation is not decided upon during the course of the graphic novel, and although the main conflict is resolved for the time being, the story's ending opens up a whole new series of questions that a sequel will surely address.
The premise of IN THE SMALL is fairly simple. Suddenly, a blue light washes over the entire earth and all of humanity is reduced to one-sixth of its original size. Nothing but humans are affected, and those who do survive the initial transformation are left to deal with the chaos of a world built for people too big. Suddenly, even the smallest animals and the simplest natural phenomena can cause great danger.
The story revolves around a brother and sister, Mouse and Beatrix (Beat for short), who together gather up groups of survivors and marshal them to create a new society. Beat is at home with her mother and grandfather when the transformation occurs, and the three of them begin to turn their house into a sustainable community, inviting neighbors and strangers alike to share the space with them.
Mouse is in the city working at his father's business when the transformation occurs. He has a talent for seeing things before they happen, or at least sensing them, something that his father has never understood. But even his father cannot deny the accuracy of the premonition that hits Mouse an hour before the transformation, and afterwards, Mouse becomes the natural leader of a group of people who make a pilgrimage through the city and back to the house that Beat is busy turning into a thriving community.
The one thing that makes this book stand out from all of the other stories of humans suddenly shrunken and at the mercy of nature and the elements is the graphic novel format. Hague's illustrations add to the sense of terror and urgency felt by the characters whose formerly-docile world has quickly turned against them. In addition, his characters present several musings about the cause of this transformation, several of which appear to be environmental in nature. Beat suggests that this is a way of Mother Earth getting back at a species that has abused her for too long.
The cause of the transformation is not decided upon during the course of the graphic novel, and although the main conflict is resolved for the time being, the story's ending opens up a whole new series of questions that a sequel will surely address.
