Sailing with the wind

A young girl discovers the ocean's majestic character when she joins her uncle on a sailing trip.

Grade 4-6 In the pencil-acrylic-watercolor world of children's books, Thomas Locker's Old-Masterly oil paintings cannot help but make an effect. His landscapes evoke such a rich tradition, and are composed of such idealized clouds, trees, and water, that objections may seem not only carping but a positive affront to High Art. His latest book again offers visual pleasures on a level not often reached in children's book illustration: that said, nevertheless it raises problems. Despite the river journey (entirely through an unpopulated and unpolluted wildernessa fantasy voyage) there is a certain monotony to the barely-differentiated settings, inadequately relieved by a sailboat as undetailed as a toy. No dramatically-lit horses, seasonal changes, or even remarkable features of landscape provide interest. The text asserts that this is an adventure, but the relentlessly poetic American pastoral unfolding in the pictures contradicts that claim. The second problem lies with the story. Its symbolic subtext is hardly ambiguous. Elizabeth's bachelor Uncle Jack carries the banner of Romance, and sails his pre-adolescent niece down the river to the ocean she's never seen. Before they're overtaken by a frightening storm they return: "My uncle was a fine sailor. Now I felt safe again." This initial venture onto the waters of adulthood, a deux with a strong and attractive, but "safe" and "understanding" man, with just enough danger to thrill, and a climactic baptism in a drenching rain, ends with the line, "I knew my parents were waiting for me and the day was just beginning." One must suppose that this book's ideal audience is the pre-pubescent girl, but will she look at a picture book? And if this book does find its readers, those readers will not find in it what they may need most: a hint that sailing against the wind might be what life is all about. Patricia Dooley, formerly at Drexel Univ . , Philadelphia
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the author of Where the River Begins and The Mare on the Hill, this book is Locker's most visually stunning to date. The spare storya girl sails with her uncle down river to the ocean and experiences the full spectrum of nature's beautyis illuminated by the clarity of Locker's narrative oil paintings. With wonderous accuracy, each one expresses a specific time and place, and more importantly, mood in nature. Of all the paintings, though, it is the episode with the coming of the storm, and then the nearness of the rocks, that will grip readers with its frightening reality. Locker has created an enduring work of art.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.