CALDECOTT MEDAL WINNER – 1958
Robert McCloskey, author and illustrator
New York: Viking Press, 1957
63 pp
ages 4+
Interests: nature, ocean, storms, cottage life, boats
An evocative recounting of a summer spent on a private island in Maine. There are dreamy descriptions of gentle rain, morning fog, children diving off rocks, rowing about at twilight, a storm and its aftermath, and finally the departure for home at the end of the summer.
Not exactly full of action and hijinks, but on the other hand it just may help lengthen attention spans, if listeners are drawn in sufficiently. Especially if the they have ever visited the seashore, or stayed at a cottage.
This would be a good last-book-before-bed story, the rolling, lulling poetic description could very well put them into a dreamy trance. There is some adventure and suspense in the oncoming storm, which turns out to be a hurricane, but no real threat. Other than the storm sequence the book is a descriptive mood piece about summertime spent on an island.
Rarest Kind of Best 