Review by Booklist Review
Rocco's latest picture book features a young boy who spends summer days fishing, crabbing, swimming, and gazing from the dock near his home. One day the air feels different: a hurricane is on its way. All through the night he watches and worries as rain and wind pummel his neighborhood. The next morning the storm is gone, along with his beloved dock. He tries unsuccessfully to repair the structure on his own (the neighbors are busy with their own cleanup) and eventually help arrives to properly rebuild the dock. Rocco's digitally enhanced pencil-and-watercolor illustrations capture the idyllic nature of summer at the shore and the hurricane's contrasting dark clouds, torrential rains, and driving wind. His realistic style makes good use of varied panel sizes and shapes, interesting perspectives (looking into a house between boards on a window), and spreads that feature multiple images of the boy involved in various pursuits. Additional details appear in the endpapers, e.g. how a hurricane forms and parts of a dock. An apt companion to Rocco's earlier titles, Blackout (2011) and Blizzard (2014), this ultimately reassuring story will find a niche with curious weather watchers and the growing number of children whose homes are threatened every year by these storms.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The light-skinned child who narrates this follow-up to Blizzard and Blackout lives near a river and likes to fish off a rickety dock. When a hurricane is forecast, "today feels different. The air is still, and the sound of hammering echoes down the street." As the adults prepare grimly, boarding up windows, the child stays upbeat: "I tell them that the best fishing comes right after a big storm." But the hurricane causes significant loss--including to the beloved dock. Naturalistic spreads in Rocco's signature style capture the peace of the child's world and the drama of the hurricane's arrival and aftermath. The story's latter half becomes an absorbing maker tale as the neighborhood addresses the damage and puts things to rights. End pages detail how hurricanes form, how their strength is measured, and the components of a dock. Ages 4--8. (Sept.)
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Review by Horn Book Review
Life is good for our young narrator. He loves to fish, crab, swim, and just watch the river passing by, and claims a little-used and neglected neighborhood dock as his own. One summer day, a hurricane hits his small community (in what looks like the Southeast wetlands). Rocco's dramatic, naturalistic digitally colored watercolor illustrations, a mix of panels, single pages, and spreads, show the impending storm approaching and the community's preparations of boarding up houses and taping windows. When the storm hits, the wind uproots trees, rain slices through the night sky, and floods wash cars away. The next morning dawns bright and still, and the boy rushes to his dock -- which, like so much in his community, has been destroyed. After a day of helping rebuild around the neighborhood, the boy tackles the dock on his own. It's too big a job, however, and he is unsuccessful until all his neighbors show up to help, and together they create not his dock but, in the narrator's words, our dock, which becomes a shared gathering place. Front endpapers present a diagram of a hurricane's formation, while the closing endpapers show a diagram of a dock's construction. As in the author's Blizzard (rev. 11/14), it is the human response to an extreme weather event that informs this strikingly illustrated, straightforwardly told book's theme. Betty Carter September/October 2021 p.82(c) Copyright 2021. 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
Adversity brings out the best in people. A young boy, perhaps the author/illustrator's younger self, witnesses this principle firsthand--and is himself a testament to it--when a hurricane wreaks havoc. Readers meet the young narrator, who describes his "favorite place in the world" as the neighborhood dock, overlooking the nearby river, where he swims and fishes. Returning home one day, he sees his dad reinforcing their house's windows because a hurricane's approaching. The boy worries: What will happen to his dock? The storm's destructive fury is dramatically portrayed both textually and visually, allowing readers to share his concern. The boy's fears are confirmed next morning when he observes the storm's damage to his street: Indeed, the dock has been destroyed. Unfortunately, neighbors can't help immediately, as they're occupied with their own home repairs; nevertheless, the boy lends them a helping hand. Afterward, with pluck, ingenuity, and every resource available, the kid attempts dock repair himself…until all his neighbors, having completed their own work and been impressed by the boy's initiative, pitch in with new supplies and sturdily fix up "our dock." This is exactly told, down-to-earth story about folks coming together in troubled times will evoke readers' empathy. The excellent, realistic illustrations, rendered in pencil and watercolors, enhance the already accessible, satisfying reading experience. The narrator and dad present White; neighbors are somewhat diverse. Front endpapers provide facts about how hurricanes develop. Rear endpapers include a replica of a charming note written by 6-year-old Rocco to his parents about a fishing trip and a labeled diagram featuring the parts of a dock. (This book was reviewed digitally.) Both informative and emotionally gratifying. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
