Review by Booklist Review
PreS-Gr. 2. In this picture book by the author of Snowflake Bentley (1998) , thoughtful blank verse and evocative illustrations tell about a boy who builds his own boat and realizes a dream. After the death of his mother, young Carl lives with his sister and fisherman father in a close, Scandinavian American community on Lake Superior's Sand Island. He longs to push off in his own boat to a place where the quiet is filled with water and sky, and with the help of his neighbors, he builds a rowboat, enjoys a blissful day on the lake, and returns to a newest boat celebration. Martin's simple, poetic text deftly balances small, revealing details about the island's characters and Carl's life with the particulars of boat building. Some children may find the story too quiet, but they'll be drawn in by the illustrations, which capture the lake's translucent light and the story's nostalgic mood in expert, geometric line drawings washed with watery blue-green and sunset-orange colors. A subtle, beautifully crafted story about hard work, simple joys, and the small, warm communities of the historic upper-Midwest. --Gillian Engberg Copyright 2003 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Martin's (Snowflake Bentley) inspiration for this lyrical tale, told in the rhythms of lapping water, came from a summer experience on Lake Superior's Sand Island, where a Norwegian named Carl Dahl once set his nets. "When Lake Superior was thick with fish/ and strung with nets/ and fishermen found their way on the water/ by watching the sun," 10-year-old Carl dreams of having a boat of his own and quietly sets out to build one. In this tightly knit community, "neighbors are closer than cousins," and Carl trades "work for work" in pursuit of his goal. Johnson's watercolors, tinted like Japanese woodblock prints, emphasize the endless stretch of summer days. Sky and water deepen imperceptibly from horizon out to the edges as Carl pulls ashore the boards he discovers on the beach. On two successive spreads, Carl holds a board steady on a pair of sawhorses and looks on as Torvald ("a little man who whistled all day/ and built rocking chairs from fish barrels") saws; on the next, Carl toils alone on a hillside, picking Torvald's strawberries in exchange. After his day with Torvald, Carl thinks to himself, "That's the end of the hard work. Nailing will be easy." But he needs nails from Burt Hill, and in return, Carl helps Burt move the rocks from under his dock. His father caps the project with two oars from their fish shed: "These are oldAfrom Norway," he says. Martin effortlessly clues readers into Carl's motivationAthe recent loss of his mother ("he kept the green beach glass/ he and his mother had found" in "his keep-away-bad-luck pocket") and his sister's skepticism ("You're too young to build a boat,/ .../ It will sink/ before you get past Moe's dock./ And we'll lose you, too"). When at last the boat is complete, he names it Beach Glass, and it's not just the boy's determination that brings the whole island to rejoice with him, it's the way he's made them all a part of his dream. Ages 5-8. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-3-This picture book about a family living on an island in Lake Superior is so finely honed and concisely written that it reads like poetry. Carl wants a boat of his own. With hard work and lots of help from his neighbors, he manages to craft a small vessel. Each spread features a large illustration that emanates mist, light, fog, and even sand and sawdust, and always a sense of water and humidity. The watercolors are subdued, almost pointillist washes with stylized fine ink outlines framing fish, figures, the boat, and trees. There is pleasure, a sense of wonder, and appreciation for small details in nature and community in this celebration of a boy's first success. The writing has the smooth, easy rhythm and flow of oars dipping and lifting through the water, and with each immersion a fine thought surfaces. The book's lyrical quality has the feel of such classics as G. Macdonald's The Little Island (Dell, 1993) and Robert McCloskey's One Morning in Maine (Viking, 1952).-Susannah Price, Boise Public Library, ID (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
In 1916, ten-year-old Carl, who lives on Sand Island in Lake Superior, dreams of his own boat. With the help of some jetsam boards and a lot of hard work, he achieves his dream. The close-knit nature of island life is relayed both by the gentle and lyrical free verse text and by the misty large-scale ink and watercolor illustrations, which exult in the physicality of the characters, especially the quintessentially boyish Carl. From HORN BOOK Spring 2004, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The author of Snowflake Bentley (1998) and the illustrator of Amy Cohn's Abraham Lincoln (2002) team up for an atmospheric picture of fishing village life on an island in Lake Superior several generations ago. Setting out to build a boat from salvaged boards, ten-year-old Carl trades labor with his adult neighbors for needed skills, nails, paint, and other supplies, then rows off on an idyllic, long-anticipated outing. Martin's measured prose--"Carl dreamed about boats. / He drew the boat he would build: / a little flat-bottomed pound boat / like the fishermen use . . . "--gives the episode a grave, formal feeling, and Johnson's delicately lined, low-contrast paintings respectfully depict a community in which "island neighbors are closer than cousins," always willing to give each other a hand. Thoughtful readers will appreciate this low-key tribute to a child's determination, and to the mutual respect that binds a community together. (Picture book. 7-9) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
