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.

From The Night Sky

Growing up those treasured friends that never left our side, one special toy, will always have a place in our memories.  Thin and threadbare but loved Loula, my sock monkey, shared many of my adventures.  She was a good listener when I read her stories, gave me courage during thunderstorms and only let good dreams visit me each night.

For the most part toys are kept close at hand; where we go, they go.  Usually they have a designated area in bedrooms.  Sometimes a distraction, when you or they least expect it, can cause them to be left behind.   Toys in Space (A Jonathan Cape Book, an imprint of Random House Children's Books) (Knopf Books for Young Readers, May 14, 2013 in the United States), the newest title by author/illustrator Mini Grey, living in Oxford, UK,  follows seven companions on an adventure out of this world.

That summer night 
for the first time
the toys were left outside.

As dusk turns to darkness the toys are silenced by the never-seen-before starry sky.  In fact there are seven individual responses to this splendor from awe to fear.  When Blue Rabbit voices a request for someone to tell a story, WonderDoll (already realizing this night is going to be a challenge), begins a tale.  Her story is the book readers hold in their hands.

After introducing each of the characters, stating they have been left out for the night, she continues with one of the stars coming closer and closer and closer.  It most certainly is not a star but a spaceship.  Before this realization can register, a ray of light from a hole in the spaceship lifts them inside.

From an open door, an alien named Hoctopize walks up to the toys.  Red-eyed from crying, this glove- shaped creature clothed in PJs, tells his sad story.  It seems it has lost a toy.

Hoctopize is missing Cuddles.  In an effort to locate Cuddles it has been beaming up all the toys left in gardens overnight storing them in the Room of a Thousand Lost Toys.  The seven are shocked.

Diplomacy, parachutes and a party set things right.  WonderDoll's words send the adventurers homeward, balloons and cake tightly clasped in their hands as the new day dawns.  What of Cuddles you ask?  Is that the sound of the Beam-O-Tron?


Mini Grey knows how to tell a story.  With an economy of carefully selected words, each of the seven toy's personalities is revealed as WonderDoll entertains them through the night.  It is their comments and questions that propel the narrative.  The blending of the two provides for a humorous, action-filled escapade.


Grey sets the stage for the story with her two title pages; the first acquainting the reader with the toys on a circle of blue with stars surrounded in black, the second, a two-page spread, shows the boy playing with them on a blanket of blue with stars.  Garden garb and a trowel supply clues as to the green shadows and bushes around them.  A vibrant color palette is used throughout for all the illustrations shifting with the time of day and, of course, inside the spaceship.

Size of the visuals, layout and design reflects a comic book style; different frame sizes inserted in a larger picture indicating the the mix of the story within the story.  Various fonts are assigned to each of the toy's words within speech bubbles.  Pertinent details add to the illustrations' attraction; the lost posters for Cuddles in the spaceship, the sleep-o-meter for the gathered toys in the shelf-filled room onboard , and the tags attached to all the toys signifying where they have been found. Grey's mixed media pictures are full of life and laughter; the facial expressions on all the characters, especially the eyes, conveying loads of  emotion.


What's not to like about a story of toys getting beamed into a spaceship when they're left in the garden at night?  Toys in Space written by Mini Grey with wit and wonder depicts the power of storytelling and friendship.  This title has lots of possibilities for story stretchers; having children bring in their toys writing dialogue for them, listing places toys have been left and found, describing a favorite alien and its clothing or a new ending to this book.

Please follow the link embedded in Mini Grey's name to visit her website.  Six pages from the beginning of the book are shown there.  Follow this link to an interview at Playing By The Book for more information about Mini Grey and her work.  It also contains links to other wonderful interviews.