Sailing Away

Comfort can be found and felt in the smallest of things.  The smell of bayberry candles reminds me of my Dad's smile and laughter; it was his favorite scent. The taste of hot chocolate reminds me of all those mornings counting the bubbles on top of a fresh hot mug; each representing a monetary amount.  The sight of Xena lying at my feet as I write and read reminds me of the countless hours we've spent walking and running.

Children find solace in a favorite blanket, stuffed animal, story or in the company of those who love them; as we all do.  In this third tale, Willy continues to find companionship with Bobo, his sock monkey.  Earl, the family cat, is never far behind, ready to steal Bobo away.  The entertaining trio is off on another adventure in Bobo The Sailor Man! (Atheneum Books For Young Readers) written by Eileen Rosenthal with illustrations by Marc Rosenthal.

This morning Willy woke up with a plan.

Not only is Willy taking Bobo exploring but he has BIG ideas.  The exuberance of Willy is contagious; knowing they might uncover dinosaur bones or, as improbable as it might be, a volcano.  With Willy and company a patch of mushrooms is not just a patch of mushrooms; they must be poisonous.

Each new item, acorns, a caterpillar, a stick, and a forgotten comb, are discovered treasures.  Their place in the world is elevated by Willy's imagination.  Cloud gazing reveals a menagerie of creatures past and present.

An abandoned pail by a nearby river, sends the ever present and most willing, Bobo on an unexpected voyage.  Willy can't run fast enough and the rocks are far too slippery to get Bobo back.  With a stern command to Earl to watch over Bobo, (as if he is not always doing so anyway), Willy runs off to get help.

What we see and Willy fails to see, will have readers giggling to their hearts' content.  Who's the rescuer and rescued?  Water trips, sailor hats and afternoon naps tell the tale.  And Earl...let's say he has the last laugh...again.

In each story Eileen Rosenthal, has created characters we want for friends.  The persistence and determination of Earl are to be admired.  No one would ever have a bad day with Willy's zest for life, his optimism, and his willingness to find joy at every opportunity.  Told entirely in Willy's conversations and thoughts, except for the first sentence, we can easily place ourselves in the middle of the action.

Bright yellow on the matching jacket and cover immediately attracts the viewer to the latest installment in the adventures of Willy, Bobo and Earl.  The contrasting vibrant red text, pail and boots hint at events to come.  As in the two previous titles, the back features Willy, clad in his pajamas, intent on his next undertaking, holding Bobo as he and Earl gaze out a window.

Plain pale yellow covers the opening and closing endpapers, with one exception.  In the lower right-hand corner of the beginning sits a tiny newspaper sailor hat.  Like the other two titles, the verso information takes on a specific shape.  This time it forms a pail.  

Drawn in pencil and colored digitally, Marc Rosenthal infuses each illustration with lively emotion.  For the most part chocolate brown lines define the settings with color filling in the characters and those elements specific to the narrative.  Text size accentuates the emotions flowing around several small illustrations on a page, single page pictures or the expressive double page spreads.  I think my favorite two pages are a series of six small pictures of Bobo's rescue.  I can't look at them without smiling.

The wife and husband team of Eileen Rosenthal and Marc Rosenthal have created another lighthearted winner in Bobo The Sailor Man!  Whether shared one-on-one or in a group setting, readers will fall in love all over again with these characters.  I would even venture to say, there might be more requests for lovable sock monkeys this Christmas season.  Bobo dressed in his bumblebee black and yellow is hard to resist.

If you want to discover more about the author and illustrator please follow the link embedded in their names to access their official websites.  Here is a link to the Simon & Schuster website for a look at more pages from the title.  It includes four activity pages to extend the fun of Willy and his friends. Here are links to my reviews of I Must Have Bobo! and I'll Save You Bobo!  For more sock monkey fun I would pair this with the series by author Cece Bell and Emily Gravett's book, Monkey and Me.

The Gift

Tomorrow evening one of the highlights of each month will begin promptly at 8:00 PM EST on Twitter.  Members of the Nerdy Book Club will gather.  It's an hour of book bliss known as the #SharpSchu Book Club, hosted by Colby Sharp, educator, co-founder of the Nerdy Book Club, co-host of the monthly #titletalk with Donalyn Miller and blogger at sharpread and John Schumacher, teacher librarian, member of the 2014 Newbery Committee, 2011 Library Journal Movers & Shakers and blogger at Watch. Connect. Read.  This month the spotlight will shine on three wordless picture books.

I've previously reviewed Molly Idle's Flora and the Flamingo (Chronicle Books) and Bluebird by Bob Staake (Schwartz & Wade Books).  The third book chosen, The Boy and the Airplane (Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers) by Mark Pett is about losing and finding.  Sometimes we find more than we have lost.


As the first page is turned on the left we see the merest hint of an adult leg walking off the edge.  On the right a young boy, clad in overalls and short sleeve shirt, is holding a box tied with ribbon in a bow, on his face is a look of wondering.  When the present is opened, to his delight, he discovers a red toy airplane.

In a heartbeat, now wearing a jacket, he's out the door.  For the next several pages his joy is almost palpable.  He runs holding the plane, he is a plane circling it on the ground, then giving it a glance, he picks it up.  Arm back, plane in hand, he gives it a mighty throw.

He runs following as it climbs toward the sky until...it lands on the roof.  In an instant his joy vanishes. This boy is a very determined fellow though.  Grabbing a ladder he tries to reach it.  No, it's too short.  The next two pages show him attempting all possible means of retrieving his gift; he's a cowboy with a lasso, a baseball player throwing a ball, bouncing on his pogo stick and a fireman with his hose spraying out water.

Clearly having exhausted all his ideas, he sits under a tree.  When a maple seed flutters to the ground next to him, a new thought begins to grow.  Carrying a shovel twice as big as he is, he digs a hole and plants the seed.  Years pass, seasons change.  So does the boy.

Now he is a balding, elderly man with a full beard clad in overalls and a short sleeve shirt, standing next to a very large tree. He climbs, he reaches and rescues.  Time, miracle worker that it is, has fashioned another shift.  A gift.


One of the most striking things about this book, immediately noticeable, is the color scheme, the grays, greens, browns and rusty red used throughout. Rendered in pencil and watercolor this palette gives readers a sense of the timelessness of this story.  Mark Pett elects to alter the jacket and cover, each showing the boy with his airplane in similar scenes taken from the pages inside the title.  Opening and closing endpapers are a pattern of the airplane outline in rows.

Increasing the readers' feeling of participation are the plain backgrounds in varying shades.  All our attention is focused on the boy, the airplane, and the tree.  Pett chooses to include the faint outlines of a door, the interior of a tool shed, a few blades of grass and a small flower. A tiny bird (or two or a nest with babies) are the boy's only companion as time passes.  Illustration size, two pages, a single page, split pages (horizontal and vertical) create new moments with ease.

The texture of the paper, the fine lines of Pett's work, and the deft strokes of his paintbrush blend to invite.  I found myself touching the pages more than once.  When we readers are viewing the final pages, we have formed a connection to the boy/man and the airplane.  That's why, for me, my favorite illustration is the double page spread, zooming in on the old man, as his face and arms appear over a treetop branch.  He's looking at the airplane resting on an aged roof as a bird is looking at him from within the leaves.  I'm pretty sure I sighed out loud the first time I saw this.


Mark Pett's The Boy and the Airplane is a gentle tale of gifts received and given, of persistence and patience and of how wanting and wondering change over the course of our lives.  This book is a priceless gift from Mark Pett to his readers.  It is meant to be treasured.  It is meant to be shared.

Please follow the link embedded in Mark Pett's name above to his official website.  There is an interesting post there about his creation of this book.  For further images of pages from the book, here is a link to the publisher website.  If you want more information about the #SharpSchu Book Club tomorrow night there are links embedded in John's and Colby's blog titles.

Where Are They?

I am a dyed-in-the-wool neatnik.  It's possibly the consequence of having a Dad who had all his tools organized by type and size, even engraving his initials on every single one.  My lifetime love, being a school librarian, could weigh heavily in favor of this particular personality trait.  The influence, over decades, of good ole' Melvil Dewey and alphabetical order is hard to shake.

Despite this, there are times when the most used, the most loved, item will turn up missing.  For whatever reason, my mind has one of its Swiss cheese moments. It's good to discover I share this, the forgetfulness not the neatness, in common with a particularly charming little green duck.  Have You See My New Blue Socks? (Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) written by Eve Bunting with illustrations by Sergio Ruzzier takes readers on a comic lost-and-found stroll.


I have lost my new blue socks.

Looking in a box proves futile.  Duck knows, at least he thinks he knows, he put them close.  It's a complete mystery where they could be.

He decides to ask his pal Fox if he has seen his new blue socks.  Fox, knowing Duck well, asks if he has looked in his box.  He also suggests he question Ox about those missing socks.

This is becoming quite the puzzle because Ox has no clue except for inside Duck's box, asking Fox or....wait maybe down by the rocks.  There are plenty there but none are blue.  And blue is exactly how Duck is trying not to feel.

Knowing how the peacocks like to preen and parade Duck thinks they might have passed his lost attire. The three offer a question, sympathy and a solution.  The youngest of the three (and a careful reader) spots the tiniest of clues. Hip! Hip! Hooray!  Duck knew he put them close.


Rhyming couplets and repetition of phrases masterfully conceived by Eve Bunting provide an irresistible beat.  It invites active participation in the reading and the narrative journey. Each turn of page offers new possibilities, building toward a mirthful resolution.


From the matching jacket and cover readers clearly feel the frustration of  Duck having lost his new blue socks.  We also get a sense Duck might not be the best housekeeper either.  The title page featuring a single peacock feather hints at the ending.  A two page illustration, a landscape showing a forlorn duck leaning out the window of his home, follows for the verso and dedication page.

Sergio Ruzzier's adept composition of pen and ink and watercolor pictures done in a palette of delicate blues, greens, yellows, rusts (terra cotta), purple and creams elevates and extends the text.  Fine lines convey personality traits and mood on each of the characters.  Ruzzier's extra touches, those added details, add joy to the story; Duck's unkempt household (items scattered on the floor, hanging from the open window frame and upon the sill), Duck's friend Fox reading a book (Aesop's Fables?) with a plate of grapes from the arbor next to him, Mr. Ox sitting on a bench painting a fruit tree but not quite getting the colors right, the shape of the peacocks bodies, their head and tail feathers and the shoes Duck wears.  Each reading offers new discoveries.


Author Eve Bunting and illustrator Sergio Ruzzier have penned and pictured a precious tale in Have You See My New Blue Socks?  While the story reaching out to readers, the illustrations will pull them in, surrounding them with affection and warmth.  This is one of those books that is best shared, preferably out loud.  It would be fun to extend this with reader's theater or creative drama.

The link embedded in Eve Bunting's name will take you to a series of video interviews at Reading Rockets.  Sergio Ruzzier's official website can be accessed by following the link attached to his name.  Links to several interviews about Ruzzier's illustrative process can be found in a previous review linked here.