Mr. Big

(Little Foot, 2007)
™ and © Little Foot

Carol and Matt Dembicki’s Mr. Big (which, by the way, has nothing to do with the 80s rock band) is an anthropomorphized animal tale somewhat in the vein of Mouse Guard or novels like Redwall or Watership Down; it takes place in a natural environment (in this case, a pond) and focuses on the relationship between various types of wildlife that live there. Mr. Big is a gigantic snapping turtle who watches over his pond but also feeds on the creatures there when necessary. One day, he eats the children of the local Big Fish, and she sees this as going too far, so she incites an uprising against him. Simultaneously, though, a foreign threat comes to the pond in the form of an Asian snakehead fish (a giant fish with razor-sharp teeth that can even walk on land), and suddenly the denizens of the pond wish they had not plotted to murder Mr. Big. The characters in this story, although animals, come across as very human, and the political/ethical dilemma the pond’s denizens find themselves in is very nuanced and interesting, making Mr. Big a highly compelling read.

— Eric Garneau

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