The One Great Gnome

The One Great Gnome

by Jeff Dinardo
illustrated by Jhon Ortiz

When eleven-year-old Sarah is transplanted from New York City to rural Connecticut, she has no idea how she will survive. Never could she have imagined that a garden gnome come to life would lead her to an underground adventure to save the entire gnome race.

I listened to the audiobook version of this story and absolutely loved the addition of sound effects to enhance the story. Looking at the printed version, I saw the addition of illustrations with the text as well. I thought these nice additions.

However, while my seven-year-old daughter found this story enjoyable, I had a difficult time getting into the story. Although it is geared toward a younger audience, I was frustrated by the overuse of dialogue tags and, at least in the second half of the story, the near absent use of pronouns, leading to names being repeated many times in a short period. An example of this can be seen in the kindle sample:

"Sarah was just turning to leave when something caught her eye. It looked like a little gray shoe that was sticking out from under an overturned planter. Sarah carefully lifted the planter and laid it aside. The shoe was part of a statue. It looked like a little elf, or gnome, made out of stone. He was about three feet tall and dressed in a suit, and on his head was a pointed hat. Sarah had seen these in her mother's books."

There were also some places throughout the book where it felt like too much background information was being given. I wasn't always sure how it was relevant to the story and was slightly distracting.

Overall, however, I did think this an enjoyable story to read with my younger children. The audiobook was well narrated and my children within the target audience seemed to enjoy it. I would rate this story three quills and place it on my bottom shelf.