Harbor Bound

by Catherine Bailey, Ellen Shi (Illustrator)

Overview

Seal the hatches.Lock the boom.Looming waves.Up . . . up . . . ZOOM!

Daylight is fading, so it's time for boats of all kinds to wrap up their work and navigate back to harbor. As a tugboat and its crew of father and child'steer toward home, it's a race to get there before the storm does! Harbor Bound traces their energetic journey, finally culminating with a gentle lullaby as they reach the shore.
This picturebook is a natural choice for children who love vehicle stories, and its steady, lilting rhythm makes it perfect for bedtime reading.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781484799529
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	05/14/2019
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	1,084,281
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	3 - 5 Years

About the Author

Catherine Bailey grew up on the water in sunny Florida, where she still lives with her favorite crew: one husband, two daughters, and a grumpy cat. She's had many other jobs, including sailboat deckhand, but her favorite by far is writing. Her other books include Mind Your Monsters, Hypnosis Harry, and Lucy Loves Sherman. You can visit her online at catherinebaileybooks.com.

Ellen Shi is a designer by day and illustrator by night. She is the illustrator of Jane Yolen's Little Frog series, Lee Bennet Hopkins's School People, and Cece Meng's World Pizza, among others. You can visit her online at ellenshi.com.

Editorial Reviews

2019-02-06

A father-and-child team venture out together on their tugboat, rescuing a small boat and navigating a storm before returning safely to their harbor.

Evocative watercolor illustrations effectively convey the ocean and harbor setting with azure skies, puffy clouds, swirling seas, and a rip-roaring thunderstorm with lightning streaking across purplish skies. While the intriguing illustrations are the book's strongest feature, several illustrations do not have exact picture-to-text correlation. Some perplexing depictions that could disorient coastal readers include an ocean liner on a direct path for collision with a sailboat and the tugboat (as well as the nearby shore) and a jet shown in the hangar bay of an aircraft carrier, which would not likely be anywhere near this small harbor. Safety-conscious readers will be concerned by the lack of clearly depicted personal flotation devices on the child and father. The child (who is androgynous) is shown wearing a slim vest, but it isn't clearly a life jacket. Sharp-eyed readers will note that the line that's towing the dinghy the tug rescues disappears in some pictures, as does the dinghy's occupant. The cast of characters includes people of color; the child's father has light skin and dark hair, and the mother presents as Asian. The short, rhyming text conveys a dramatic and interesting story, but in the pictures, too many extraneous types of boats make unnecessary and illogical appearances. Nautical terms used in the story are defined in a glossary.

While the logical concerns don't sink this ship, muffed details have it awash at the scuppers. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews