Heave Ho

As with Sally Anne Garland’s earlier book, The Chalk Garden, a child’s encounter with nature sparks new understanding and – subtly and with the lightest touch – provides the opportunity to explore emotions that all readers will recognise, to varying degrees. Cub is tired and distracted when he arrives at school, ‘so full of big feelings that he had no space left inside for anything, or anyone, else’. He’s grumpy with his friends when they try to play and when little Mo gives Cub her teddy to cuddle, angrily throws it up into the branches of a tree. He feels bad for that but can’t move on from his dark mood. Cross and guilty, he starts pushing on a branch of the tree, keen to ‘make the branch SNAP!’ But it resists, and the harder Cub pushes, the smaller his big feelings become. Swinging on the branch, the noise it makes, the noise his feet make, sounds like sea. Now his friends join him, and the branch is transformed into a boat, all them pulling on the oars. By the time the bell rings for the end of break, Cub’s big feelings have been swept away, finally replaced by the feelings he has when he fetches little Mo’s teddy down from the tree, feelings that don’t need to be named but which make a space inside him that feels ‘as big as the sea’.

For children, this will primarily be a story about the joy of playing with friends and the scenes of the little friends rowing their boat across the ocean are full of fun and action, but the real story – just as clear – is the interior one. It will be reassuring for any child who, like Cub, pushes against feelings they find it hard to control; the story finds space for them and the perfect way in to talking about feelings they would find it hard to describe. Another outstanding book from this author.