CM Magazine: We'll All Go Sailing.

________________ CM . . . . Volume VII Number 21 . . . . June 22, 2001

We'll All Go Sailing.

Richard Thompson & Maggee Spicer. Illustrated by Kim LaFave.
Toronto, ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2001.
32 pp., cloth, $19.95.
ISBN 1-55041-662-6.

Subject Headings: Marine animals-Juvenile poetry.
Color-Juvenile poetry.
Children's poetry, Canadian (English).

Grades Preschool - 2 / Ages 3 - 7.

Review by Catherine Hoyt.

**** /4

excerpt:

We'll all go sailing
On the hot, orange sea.
And what will we see
In the sea, we three?
A black flying fish,
And a brown sea slug!
That's what we'll see
In the hot, orange sea.

This tale of adventure on the high seas is the second collaborative work by this husband and wife duo. These three sailors set out to explore the great wide seas, which turn out to be really wide seas when the reader opens the gatefolds to find out what the three see on each page. The fact that this book will be a fun way to learn colours is a bonus. My favorite part of this book is the end which reads:

excerpt:

We'll all sail home
from the great wide seas-
My friend Maggee
And Jesse and me
We'll make a fine book
To show what we'll see
When we all go sailing
On the rainbow seas

The three adventurers are shown making a book with brilliantly coloured paper and vivid pictures of the animals that they've seen in the great wide seas. Award winning illustrator Kim LaFave does a great job with his vibrantly coloured sea creatures. LaFave's style is easily recognized by his three sailors who look very similar to characters in other books he has illustrated, such as Pumpkin Time. The only problem I noticed with the illustrations is that the black flying fish in the hot orange sea is actually shown as green. The reader would notice this if identifying colours during the story was a priority. Actually, I think I'll see if the children in my Storytime notice without actually pointing out this discrepancy. At the end of the book, the entire poem is repeated on a single non-illustrated page. This book will make a great addition to my Preschool Storytime on "Fish." It would also be a wonderful new addition to classroom and library collections, especially in the "colour" section of the concept books.

Highly Recommended.

Catherine Hoyt is the Curator of the Eileen Wallace Children's Literature Collection at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, NB.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS ISSUE - June 22, 2001.