When a wealthy man is set upon by thieves, and rescued by a "great smelly, slobbery, small-tooth dog," he promises his defender the choice of his many treasures. Refusing the man's multilingual fish, virtuosic songbird, and golden-egg-laying goose, the dog requests his beautiful young daughter instead. So begins a tale that falls into the same category as Beauty and the Beast and East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon - that would be tale-type 425C in the Aarne-Thompson classification system, for those who are interested - in which an enchanted prince in beastly form must be saved by the love of a young maiden.

I enjoyed this traditional English tale - which, to my mind, falls more on the East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon end of the spectrum, when it comes to this tale type - immensely. Although I found the narrative a little jarring at first (too many short, declarative sentences), I eventually adjusted to Macdonald's rhythm. The gouache illustrations by Julie Paschkis are bright and appealing, with some lovely details. I particularly liked the decorative endpapers, with their depiction of various herbs and plants.

Folktale enthusiasts will be interested to learn that this story has also been retold in picture-book format by the fabulous Kevin Crossley-Holland (Small-Tooth Dog), as well as appearing in Betsy Hearne's immense multicultural collection of Beauty and the Beast type tales, Beauties and Beasts. But whether one's interest is in comparing this to other tales of the same type (I'm in the midst of a Beauty and the Beast project myself, at the moment), or simply in reading it for its own sake, there is much in The Great Smelly, Slobbery, Small-Tooth Dog to enjoy! ( )

This book reminds me a lot of Beauty and the Beast. It follows that lesson that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that you can't always tell what someone or something is like by the way it looks or appears. In other words, don't judge a book by it's cover. I found the illustrations interesting but I had a hard time believing that it was representative of Great Britian. It seemed to me to have more of an Eastern European feel. ( )

At first I found this story a little boring but at the end it made me smile. The art is really cool. ( )