Tiny and Hercules

by Amy Schwartz

Another gem from Amy Schwartz just as "charming and hilariously understated*" as ever. (*New York Times) Five fast and funny chapters of the lives of two rather unusual Tiny, an elephant with a fear of ice skating and a newfound love of knitting, and Hercules, a mouse with a heart of gold and a desire to learn to paint. As different as can be, somehow together they make the perfect team. Young readers setting out on their own with books will cheer for this funny and touching duo.

Genres: Picture Books, Friendship, Childrens, Fiction, Storytime, Humor

32 pages, Hardcover

First published May 12, 2009

About the author

Amy Schwartz is the author and illustrator of many picture books for children, including Begin at the Beginning; Things I Learned in Second Grade; Bea and Mr. Jones, a Reading Rainbow feature; What James Likes Best, recipient of the 2004 Charlotte Zolotow Award; and a glorious day. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband Leonard S. Marcus, and their son, Jacob.

Reviews

[Chance Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boy, people hate this book. It has one of the lowest rankings on Goodreads I've seen. I don't understand why. It's like Frog & Toad-lite, in which two animal companions have goofy adventures across five (very) short stories. The illustrations are cute and the situations are funny. I LOL'd when the old mouse tried to blow out over 100 candles and only blew out one.

[Kiyoko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whimsical stories about two friends that one would think would captivate the attention of my kids. They were meh.... I had to explain the punch line for the lemonade stand story, it did not click. Nor did the knitting story.

The kids liked the birthday story best because 103 candles is really something special.

I kept getting the two characters mixed up and wanted the mouse to be Tiny.

The book cover says that the stories are droll and I heartily concur.
2.9 stars

[Jo Oehrlein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Broken up into 4 very short stories, where the final answer to each story is an illustration with no text.

Tiny is the elephant. Hercules is the mouse. The size difference comes into play in several of the stories.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite certain how this ended up in my pile of books at the library but it was quite delightful.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five short tales involving the adventures of two best friends, Tiny the elephant and Hercules the mouse.

[Lauren Keaney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Summary: Tiny and Hercules are best friends that do lots of things together. In this story, they help one another complete five different activities: ice skating, an art class, a lemonade stand, a birthday party, and knitting. Throughout each of the activities, one of the two friends needs the other friend's help in order to do it. Whenever one of them needs help, the other one is always there to back their friend up. Tiny and Hercules are true friends that are always willing to help out one another.

Theme: Good friends support their friends and help them do things when they cannot do it on their own.

Personal Response: This book was entertaining and is a good book to read to kids for fun. The way the book is divided up into five different activities makes it easy to follow along with the story. The illustrations are cute and engage the reader.

Recommendation: This book is a cute story that young children would probably enjoy, but there is not too much depth to the plot. Therefore, this limits the quality of discussion that could emerge from reading this book to a class. However, a teacher could pose questions about what it means to be a good friend. This could be beneficial if a teacher was having problems with students not being helpful or nice to their fellow classmates. Overall, I think that there are better books to read to a classroom.

[Alyssa Pierce · Rating 1 out of 5]

These two make quite the pair. An elephant named Tiny is quite ironic, however, this is where the humor ends for this book. There are many different scenarios that the two go through from ice-skating to a lemonade stand. They try to succeed but at the first sign of failure, they both give up and seemingly move on to another activity. This book was a little difficult to follow and did not have a clear story line. In addition to this, there was no real point to the story. Tiny and Hercules went from one activity to the next with the goal of succeeding but never really seeming to get there. The pictures in this book were cute; they helped provide a nice flow to the overall story. The pictures were sequenced in a way that made the story easy to follow from that perspective. Some of the pages have a couple of smaller pictures that help to break the story up. Overall, this book is nothing to write home about, it was lacking in the writing and could have had a much better storyline.

[Tina · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is no wonder the children in this day and age suffer from ADD! This is the second book I have read to my daughter, this week, that is all over the place. There is no lesson here except to quit when things get hard. The elephant, Tiny, has a hard time learning to ice skate. After 17 days of trying, he still is not good at it. So his friend mouse, Hercules, says he has an idea. From there they hop from one activity to another. One would think that the idea would be to help Tiny learn to skate but they never came back to it. This is a terrible lesson which tells kids that when something gets hard, just quit and do something else. I do not recommend this book. If I could have given it less than one star, I would have.

[Brandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute collection of mini-stories of the adventures of these two unlikely animal friends. All the stories have a funny punchline that my kids "got," they laughed through the whole book. My favorite though was the last story, about knitting of all things. As a knitter I was cracking up at all the inside jokes throughout the story. The author must be a knitter.

[Asha Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a decent book. Not a book that I would suggest to read to a class. This would be a cute book to have on the bookshelf in the class. Its the typical story of the Elephant (Hercules)and the mouse (Tiny) and Hercules is always saving Tiny. But its a great story on friendship and helping out others.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute series of stories about two friends, and how they help each other. Invites children to develop narrative skills, because the endings are not always spelled out. Children need to interpret what is going on at the end of each story.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is cute-funny. The book contains 5 short and silly tales of the fun (and trouble) that Tiny the elephant and Hercules the mouse get into together. Reads almost like 5 long jokes, as the last line or illustration to each anecdote is like a punchline.

[Edna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tiny is very big and Hercules is very small and their friendship is sweet and special. These very short 4-5 page stories remind me a bit of George and Martha, with more emphasis on thinking of ways to support and help each other when a problem arises.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gets bonus points for a knitting story with illustrations of a knitting shop that are actually accurate as far as they way shelving works. The illustrator did their homework!

And cute, short stories.

[Hope · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cute book. We loved how it was a compilation of short stories. The illustrations were great and the moral of each story was quite nice and with a touch of humor too. A good little book about friendship.

[Melanie Hetrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

In a series of 5 short stories, Tiny, an elephant, and Hercules, a mouse, solve problems together as friends.

I can't stand picture books that purport to be chapter books. If you want to write a chapter book, write one! If you want to appeal to young kids for read-alouds, write picture books!

[N · Rating 2 out of 5]

An elephant and mouse have a set of five mundane adventures, all with whimsical endings.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

The pictures were way cuter than the stories. It was kind of a Piggie and Elephant rip off, imo.

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short, simple stories about friendship between an elephant and a mouse.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book is an adorable book about friendship. Plus, my kid loves it.

[Tina B · Rating 3 out of 5]

elephants, mice, unlikely friends

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Short little sectional stories about how Tiny, the elephant and Hercules, the mouse, help each other as friends.

[Joanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

1/25/11 To be fair, my son never sat through the entire book. He's three. Some other reviewers have praised the book so we may revisit this one in the future.

[Peacegal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two very different friends use their talents to help each other out of jams.

[Marge]

Tiny & Hercules - short stories about their friendship

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several cute short stories.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not like it, but Melanie did. 3 years old

[Mckinley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found a bit blah and disjointed.

[Esodhiambo · Rating 4 out of 5]

idioms
friends
making mistakes
synonyms