SMOUT & THE LIGHTHOUSE

A father and son come to terms with their differences in this biographical anecdote.

His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather have been builders of lighthouses, but young Robert—affectionately nicknamed “Smout”—has no interest in taking up the Stevenson family trade. An aspiring writer, he dreams of “giants and knights in armor, hidden treasure, and pirates. Definitely pirates!” Struggling to keep up on an inspection tour along the coastal moors of Fife, he asks for a pirate yarn. His father stops posing leading questions about geology and engineering and obliges with a rousing tale of buccaneers dashed to bits on a rock because they stole its warning bell. As Yolen affirms in her afterword, that child indeed went on, with his family’s grudging support, to become a famous writer. But she also commends the Stevenson lighthouses, many of which, as shown on an appended map, are still active around Scotland’s rugged coast (and, she notes, the world). Using layers of cut paper, Rayne effectively alternates nautical scenes of castaways and corsairs with depictions of a small child and his cloaked father, both white like all the figures here, climbing lighthouse steps, crossing expanses of choppy water and rocky, windswept shores, and at last going off amicably together, hand in hand. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A glimpse of warm ties between a child who sees pirates and a parent who sees the light.