Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | J 155.937 JOSLIN 1999 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Saying goodbye to someone you love is always hard. Saying goodbye when someone you love dies is perhaps the hardest thing of all. Joslin's simple, thoughtful text and Little's evocative illustrations explore the pain and grief of saying goodbye and open the door to discussion for readers of any age. The Goodbye Boat provides a message of hope that sadness will ease and comforts with the reassurance that death is not the end.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2With only a word or a very short phrase per page, Joslin takes readers through a highly encapsulated but effective experience of losing a loved one through death, grieving, and recovering. The richly colored rectangular paintings appear in various sizes on each spread and have flat, simplified forms. They show a young boy and girl who savor the seaside in the company of an older, white-haired woman. She then waves good-bye and sets sail on the ocean, leaving them sad and bewildered through a period of gray days and dark nights. Eventually, however, the children enjoy the sunny beach once again, and the sailing ship bearing their dear friend glides into a golden, tree-lined shore (Yet when the boat/has gone from view/its surely sailing/somewhere new). The entire image is expressive and lovely.Patricia Pearl Dole, formerly at First Presbyterian School, Martinsville, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
With minimal text and artwork that brims with symbolism, this picture book explores the difficult subject matter of the death of a loved one and a family's ensuing grief. Joslin and St. Louis Little introduce a young family enjoying a beach outing with an elderly woman. Before long, the woman and two children see a large ship approach and the woman apparently gets on board, sailing out of sight leaving "sad friends... weeping" on the shore. Later (several seasons have passed) we see her standing on the ship's deck "sailing somewhere new." While the spare text is evocative and thought-provoking, coupled with the sequence of paintings here, its brevity will likely prove confusing for young readers. The elderly woman waves goodbye on one page, then on the next page she's back, petting the dog. The season also turns from sunny summer to chilly fall on the same spread. Joslin's overarching message, that the pain of grief eventually subsides and that there is a positive afterlife experience, is a comforting one; unfortunately, it's poorly executed. Although her characters have limbs that sometimes appear rubbery and out of proportion, the artist achieves an appropriately sentimental and sometimes serene mood in her oil paintings. Ages 2-up. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Minimal text--often one or two words per double-page spread--gives scant interpretation of moody paintings showing two people spending time with an elderly woman, then grieving once a boat takes her away. Adults will infer that the boat represents death and the journey to the afterlife. But for children, the treatment of the subject is unnecessarily vague and raises more questions than it answers. From HORN BOOK Fall 1999, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A picture book for the very young that attempts to grapple with the sorrow of coping with the death of a loved one. The text has so few words that readers and listeners will have to work hard to plumb its significance. ``Friends together/laughing,/loving./Sad friends leaving,/wondering,/weeping.'' The pictures show a gray-haired woman, a younger woman and man, a boy, a girl, and a dog in the sun; the children and the dog play on the beach, and then, as the sky grows dark, watch a boat in the distance. ``Goodbye boat./It's lost from sight.'' The children are seen separate and alone in the twilight, and then in their beds. Soon it is morning again, and they play along the shore. ``Yet when the boat has gone from view/it's surely sailing somewhere new'' and the scene is of a boat in full sun, with the older woman on board, and a dove flying in the golden light. The illustrations are hieratic and based on full, rounded geometric forms: the colors are beautifully rendered from light to dark, and each page has tiny boxes of details, almost like a bit of stop-action film, along its borders. With the aid of an imaginative adult, this book may spark comforting discussion in the face of losing a loved one; young readers may find it too abstract for perusing alone. (Picture book. 3-7)
Booklist Review
Ages 4^-7. This is a beautiful little book; its simplicity and feeling will touch children who have lost a loved one. The text is only a handful of words, but they work very well with the art, which is set off in vertical and horizontal blocks. The first spread shows a family--parents, a sister and a brother, and a grandmother--" friends together," laughing and loving. Then a ship comes into view, and the grandmother leaves the brother and sister "weeping" and "wondering." The children wave farewell to the boat with their grandmother on board. Lonely days, wintry days pass; eventually summer returns. And although the boat has disappeared from view, "it is surely sailing somewhere new." Little's solid yet inventive artwork moves through the seasons, playing with the light of seasonal change. Summer sunshine changes to autumnal grays, the dark blues of winter, and finally sunshine once more. This effective manner of visually showing the stages of grief culminates in a final spread in which the grandmother is shown in the bow of the ship, riding on blue waters, as a dove leads her to a distant shore. Much to talk about, much to ponder. --Ilene Cooper