A Dog So Small - Philippa Pearce

Continuing my habit of reading books from my childhood, I picked up Philippa Pearce's A Dog So Small at the library on Saturday. I had forgotten much of the story in this very short book, in the intervening decades, except for the fact of the very small dog. The story opens with Ben Blewitt waking early on the morning of his birthday, anticipating that he will have a dog of his own. His grandfather had promised him one for his birthday and even though Ben knows the impossibility of having a dog in London, he still expects to receive news of the dog, if not the animal itself, on his birthday. Instead he receives a picture done in wool, of a Chihuahua called Chiquitito (the Spanish word for very, very small) which had been given to Ben's Granny by her son Willy as a souvenir of his third (and last voyage) as a sailor.

Ben is bitterly disappointed and swears never to visit his grandparents again, but he goes to stay with them in their home in the country shortly afterwards. It is on his return trip to London that he suddenly sees Chiquitito for the first time behind his closed eyelids. From then on he and the dog are inseparable, sharing Ben's dreams and then his waking hours, as he sits with a hand shading his eyes to disguise the fact that they're closed. Finally, on Christmas Eve, with presents unbought, Ben follows Chiquitito across a busy London road, with his eyes closed and is knocked down. He has terrible nightmares whilst he is unconscious from the accident, but he survives. He goes to live with his grandparents to recuperate, having been surprised by the news that his grandparents' dog, "Young Tilly" (who is in fact quite old), has had nine puppies. His mother accompanies Ben to visit her parents and whilst there, she and her mother have a conversation that leads, on her return to London, to a discussion with her husband and a decision to move to North London, near Hampstead Heath, to be near their newly married daughter, May, and her sister Dilys who is sharing a flat with them. And Ben is promised one of Tilly's puppies…

That isn't the end of the story, nor is it by any means an obvious happy ending, for Ben finds that his puppy is not the Chiquitito of his imaginings, but a flesh and blood and fur puppy with his own personality. At first Ben rejects the puppy, when he discovers this, but then he comes to his senses, and instead of abandoning it on Hampstead Heath as he had half-planned, he takes it home.

This is a brilliant book. It talks of the power of the imagination, especially a child's imagination - and the dangers as well as the pleasures of a powerful imagination that brings things to life. It also talks about the making and breaking of promises, and the difficulty of living with something that has been wished for and longed for - the old adage about being careful what you wish for as you might get it, certainly applies here. But in the end, the story ends happily, and though it is short, it is engaging.