booktastic

At that book sale last week, I happened to pick up a copy of a brand new children’s picture book called Ocean Wide, Ocean Deep, by Susan Lendroth, published August of this year by Tricycle Press.

Now, I didn’t buy it for myself, even though I have a “thing” for well-made children’s books (my minor at university actually focused on children’s literature. When my fellow students were struggling with Henry James, I was reading Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.) I picked it up for a baby I know.

I chose this book over several other picture books because this one had very nice illustrations and a sweet story. It’s about a girl, in the olden days, waiting for her Dad to get back from the sea.

Pretty simple story, right? Well, it’s a picture book for small children. It’s SUPPOSED to have a simple story. When your book is less than twenty pages long and has fewer words than this blog post, you have to be pretty concise in your story structure: You announce the problem, deal with the problem, and at the end of the book, resolve the problem. The problem is announced - girl’s dad is going away to sea. Deal with the problem: girl misses her dad. Resolve the problem: Dad comes home. Everybody’s happy.

Unfortunately, although I really like this book, I haven’t got a lot to say about it… because it’s less than twenty pages long and has fewer words than this blog posting. But let me reitterate: sweet story, BEAUTIFUL illustrations. If the book has one flaw, it’s that some of the vocabulary used in it is a bit advanced for the “picture book” age group… but I suppose that would be a good opportunity for vocab building, too, so I can’t even really complain about that.

So, to sum up - if you need a pretty, sweet, new picture book for a young lady you know this Christmas: pick up Ocean Wide, Ocean Deep. Definitely a keeper. (Although I’m not keeping mine, darn it. Lucky baby!) — Mrs. Hall

Trackback URI | Comments RSS