The Rands do a merry job of painting a family’s life at sea on a four-masted sailing bark during the end of the 19th century. They take as their inspiration the true life of the Madsen family on their ocean-faring vessel the John Ena. Ted Rand’s atmospheric watercolors manage to make the colossal ship quite cozy, and Gloria Rand employs the cheery voice of the captain’s youngest daughter to explain the layout of the bark and how they spent their time aboard. Young readers will marvel at the menagerie the children are in charge of, including a kangaroo, a monkey, more yeomanly creatures like ducks and chickens, and an unfortunate pig that falls in the tar being used to patch the deck and gets a burial at sea. They may be less enthralled to learn that a governess taught the children lessons six days a week, mornings and afternoons, “with only an hour off for lunch and no recesses”; the son of the captain plays hooky and gets his ear twisted for his trouble. But climbing in the rigging, playing on the deck, and arriving at the exotic ports of call bestow upon the life many of the qualities of an idyll. Then a brutal Christmas storm puts the precariousness back in the life of the family balancing keeping it all real. All ends happily and an afterword describing the source of the story adds the necessary authenticity. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7358-1539-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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