Burt Dow Deep Water Man by Robert McCloskey

This is a real summertime read, especially if you are by the sea. Its one of those picture books that was published in the sixties that has quite a lot of text. Good text! Theres no doubt that kids must have had (or were assumed to have) longer attention spans back then. Its rare to get a picture book now that's over thirty two pages and even rarer to get one with more than two lines of text per page. I think this is also though, with all our helicopter parenting that there is an urge to move kid on from pictures to chapter books and novels. Which leaves picture books with the reputation that they are for toddlers only. So not true.

Anyway, enough rambling on. I'm no expert, but I do know that this book, Burt Dow Deep-Water Man is good for adventure lovers age three to ten and worth a look for any child who is interested in art. The paintings - I'm pretty sure the illustrations were painted, are so wonderful. If so many of them weren't spread over two pages they would all already be framed on my kids walls.

Here he is with his beloved boat the Tidely-Idely

 which he takes out one one sunny morning. Everyone knows the sounds of the Tidely-Idely.

He hadn't expect to meet a whale!(Look at the paint splashes on that tail - so beautiful.)

And this is where he ends up - in the whales tummy.

But Burt Dow is very resourceful and Whales, as we know from many childrens books, are very kind. They figure it out.  Sixty three pages of Summery wonderfulness. Highly recommended.