MADAKET MILLIE

The jacket copy says it's a true story, the CIP calls it fiction, and there is something of the tall tale in the exploits of Mildred Jewett. A salty character if ever there was one, she took it upon herself to replace the Madaket Beach lifesaving service at the end of Nantucket Island when the Coast Guard closed its station after WW II. For more than 40 years, Millie patrolled the shore and was often the first to raise the alarm when a boat was in trouble. Islanders relied upon her ``weather eye'' to predict the severity of hurricanes, and the Coast Guard made her an honorary commander. Formidable in both physique and personality, Millie became a Nantucket legend, and died in 1990. Weller (I Wonder If I'll See a Whale, 1991, etc.) recounts the colorful details of this eccentric life in vernacular prose as laconic as the speech of Nantucket Islanders. Sewall's depictions of the Massachusetts coast are familiar from Thunder from the Clear Sky (1995) and its predecessors; here they feature strong masses of weathered-looking color enclosed within heavy black outlines, suggesting the windswept, sun-bleached island landscape. A strong book about a strong woman who took to heart the admonition ``Where life has set you, make a difference.'' (Picture book. 6-10)