A Little Sailing Lesson

‘If you are setting sail for the first time…’ The text that the author/illustrator presents is full of advice for a child that are both words of encouragement for a young sailor and a more general manual for life – ‘what counts is taking time to enjoy the journey…’ ‘to take stock and not to lose heart.’

This is much more than a collection of short, gnomic sayings, however: Aldo, the adult sailor, and the child at the heart of the narrative set out and are confronted by the challenges of exploring the deep by meeting huge sea creatures, by losing the little mast/flagpole in the dramatic storm. There is a journey of discovery at all sorts of levels here: ‘Our ship will always get somewhere.’

Finding an age range for this book is a challenge; it could be a collection of pieces of wise advice for young people just about to ‘set sail’ in secondary school, but is full of pictures that would work with classes earlier in primary school  doing a project on the sea (Stephani’s big blocks of blue are entrancing and could themselves be a mini-project on shade and colour). When sharing the text with a child or group an adult might consider the need to be sensitive, and not over-stress the parallels between the characters on the boat and the life story of the readers – but careful reading is no bad thing with a book full of such exciting images (the giant squid, the busy fishing port), as we are presented with the lesson ‘to savour the moment and to be enchanted by the wonders of the deep.’