Picture Books

Making a Splash

In spring, a child's fancy turns to thoughts of water, because water, plus sun, is what looming, glorious summer is all about. Four new picture books celebrate the wet and the wild.

You remember Stanley. Big, quiet feller in a hat. Bit of a loner. Potters about minding his own business. In his first two outings as a picture-book hero, he went for a drive and mowed the lawn. What made both trips interesting was his, or author Craig Frazier's, out-of-the-box way of seeing the world -- and things haven't changed in Stanley Goes Fishing (Chronicle, $15.95; ages 4-8). One morning, Stanley "rowed up the curly stream looking for the perfect place" to fish, but nothing's biting in the blue sky-mirror of a lake except a boot. As usual, "Stanley had an idea." He'll cast his line in the blue lake-mirror of the sky. Turns out to be "the best day of fishing ever." The pictures absolutely nail those surreal, golden-and-azure days when you can hardly tell air from water.

Jean Heilprin Diehl's Loon Chase (Sylvan Dell, $15.95; ages 4-8) conjures up a traditional New Hampshire summer. "Early one morning, before breakfast, Mom and I paddled to Big Island to pick blueberries. Our dog, Miles, leaped off the dock to swim with us." All is idyllic until Miles spots "three tiny specks" in the middle of the bright lake -- a loon and two chicks -- and is after them, too fast to be stopped. But to the anxious young narrator's surprise, the adult loon proves more than a match for Miles. Kathryn Freeman's pastel illustrations are all sun and shadow, deftly switching perspective from boat to dog to birds and back. Especially nice is the one of the oblivious chicks afloat on shimmering blue-green water. Useful loon facts are appended.

The Miraculous Tale of the Two Maries (Viking, $16.99; ages 5-8), by the great Rosemary Wells, is a boating tale of a more fantastic stripe. In a church in the French coastal town of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is a wooden boat, and in it are two wooden ladies, to whom numerous local miracles are attributed. In this charming riff on the legend, Wells imagines the two Maries as feisty best friends who were caught by a storm when out in their rowboat one day long ago. Swept "right up to Heaven," the teenagers pester God to see their families for just five minutes more. God, as is His way, doesn't answer. But the Maries hop surreptitiously back into their boat. "Are we dead or not?" asks one. "I think we are between the two worlds," says the other. So it proves, and they make the most of it, rowing down to do good works in the town below "until the day came when all our families and neighbors and their children had come to the Gates of Heaven." Wells's typically brisk text ("Boating in the sky was so pleasant") is complemented by Petra Mathers's airy, sunny watercolors.

Meanwhile, Chris Butterworth dives deep to find Sea Horse: The Shyest Fish in the Sea (Candlewick, $16.99). "In the warm ocean, among the waving sea-grass meadows, an eye like a small black bead is watching." You'll spot it if you peer closely enough at the serene, gray-blue-green engravings John Lawrence did for this gem of a nature book. Soon the shy watcher, Sea Horse, steals out to star in the first part of the tale. He swims, camouflages himself, mates (in what must be the ocean's prettiest love ritual: "They twist their tales together and twirl gently around, changing color until they match") and hatches out hundreds of babies "only as long as your eyelash" (yep, Dad hatches them). The focus then switches to a tiny daughter as she grows and floats off to her own "holdfast" in a reef of red coral. Snippets of fact back up this underwater drama in smaller type.

A Trio of Icons

Western accounts of the first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953 don't ignore Tenzing Norgay, but they do cast the Nepalese Sherpa as the No. 2 behind Edmund Hillary. Robert Burleigh remedies that in Tiger of the Snows (Atheneum, $23.50; ages 7-10), reminding us in an afterword of Tenzing's iconic status in Asia: "When he died in 1986, his funeral train was nearly one mile long." Unfortunately, "Burleigh's tribute takes the form of a rather dirge-like, sentimental prose poem ("A song for Tenzing,/Tenzing Norgay,/Sherpa,/Mountain man,/Tiger of the snows") laced with nebulous bits of biography ("Studied the lore of the axe,/And apprenticed himself to death and danger"). What makes the book stunning is Caldecott medalist Ed Young's pastel spreads of those awe-inspiring Himalayan vistas. One rose, white and violet death-swirl of snow is worthy of J.M.W. Turner.

Marybeth Lorbiecki's inspirational Jackie's Bat (Simon & Schuster, $21.95; ages 5-8) is narrated by Joey, a fictional batboy for "dem bums," the Brooklyn Dodgers, in 1947, when Jackie Robinson became not just the first African American to play in the Major Leagues but the first ever Rookie of the Year. Lorbiecki doesn't downplay the ugliness of that initial season. Joey's Pops tells him, "It ain't right, a white boy serving a black man" and opines that Robinson "won't be able to hack it in the big leagues." The batboy describes the small insults he himself delivers, as well as the racism of fans, opposing teams and the system that puts Robinson in different hotels from the rest of the Dodgers. But he also charts his change of heart in the face of Robinson's dignity and restraint. Even Pops gets it in the end. "That man's earned his place in history," he concedes. Brian Pinkney's glowing illustrations capture the raw emotions of a turbulent year.

One thing's for sure: The 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth will see no tribute as merry as Peter Sis's Play, Mozart, Play! (HarperCollins, $16.99; ages 3-6). "He played blindfolded," Sis informs the pre-school set. "He played with covered keys. He played backward. . . . But Mozart did not play with other children, because his father made him practice all the time." Yet, as the Czech-born Sis is at pains to demonstrate through both sprightly text and teeming, fun-filled drawings, Mozart's music was play personified -- probably the most playful the world has ever heard. A lovely introduction. ·

Elizabeth Ward regularly reviews children's books for Book World.