SAVING SINBAD!

Everyone works in an English fishing village and everyone volunteers for life-saving duty, even the carpenter’s canine. For the unnamed working dog, the view is marvelous from the top of the old church, where it can see the artist, the sausage delivery boy, and the barber. But when a sudden storm threatens to sink a family in a sailboat, all of the above must leap to the town’s lifeboat, like the volunteer fire department. The crew, including the dog’s master, is able to save the family aboard the foundering vessel, but the little girl is crying for Sinbad, her lost Scottie. It’s up to the heroic dog to dive in and save the terrier. Foreman (Michael Foreman’s Play Rhymes, p. 1308, etc.), for all his experience, has chosen to tell the story from the dog’s first-person view, and in a gentle way for young readers. It somehow loses a bit of the pathos in its observational style of such an exciting rescue. As much a memory of his boyhood town as an attempt to engage young readers, this episode forgets to build like a wave, or crash with the danger of the angry sea. Some youngsters might be drowning with excitement here, but for others, this might be nothing but foam. (Picture book. 4-8)