Nana's Book Library

My kids love this book, but I think I love it even more.  I wasn’t born in 1957, but if I had been a kid then, I would have wanted to spend time with my family on this island off the coast of Maine.  

            The first thing to notice, especially if you read it aloud, is that time slows down.  We’re not on hyper-internet-dopamine hit time anymore.  Reading the first couple of pages is like taking a deep, cleansing breath, rooting yourself in a very lovely part of the world in a less complicated time, and feeling the child you’re reading this to relax beside you.

            “Out on the islands that poke their rocky shores above the waters of Penobscot Bay, you can watch the time of the world go by, from minute to minute, hour to hour, from day to day, season to season.  

            “You can watch a cloud peep over the Camden Hills, thirty miles away across the bay – see it slowly grow and grow as it comes nearer and nearer; see it darken the hills with its shadow; and then, see it darken, one after the other, Islesboro, Western Island, Pond Island, Hog Island, Spectacle Island, Two Bush Island – darken all the islands in between, until you, on your island, are standing in the shadow, watching the rain begin to spill down way across the bay.  

            “The rain comes closer and closer.  Now you hear a million splashes.  Now you even see the drops on the water… on the age-old rocky point… on the bayberry … on the grass…. Now take a breath – It’s raining on you!”

            The main characters are two sisters, spending the summer on this island with their parents.  We see them on the shore on a foggy morning, hearing a lobster boat start up through the fog, surprising the seabirds, as a family of porpoises plays nearby.

            “Back from the shore, the trees look like ghosts. The forest is so quiet that you can hear an insect boring a tunnel deep inside a log.  And that other sound – not the beating of your heart, but the one like half a whisper – is the sound of growing ferns, pushing aside dead leaves, unrolling their fiddle-heads, slowly unfurling, slowly stretching.”

            The illustrations are soft, dreamy watercolors.  The girls take their small sailboat out among the islands, play and swim with other kids on the beach and in the water, and – like my brother and I, and all our friends used to do back in the day – play outside until it’s suppertime.  … “as the stars are gazing down, their reflections gazing up. In the quiet of the night one hundred pairs of eyes are watching you, while one pair of eyes is watching over all.”

            And then, as the days grow shorter, the weather changes.  A hurricane is coming.  All of a sudden, there’s work to be done!  So much to do to be prepared!  The animals and birds all know some weather is coming.  The bell-buoy that sways slightly with the tide starts tolling faster, and louder.  Inside, the girls are safe with their parents, playing board games, reading, singing, trying to be heard over the wind.  The morning after the storm, fallen and broken trees are everywhere.  “You cannot walk on familiar paths and trails… but you can explore the tops of giant fallen trees, and walk on trunks and limbs where no one ever walked before.”  There are new places to play, and new things to discover, and every new day is a time of wonder.

This book is available used on Amazon. It is also available used in paperback and hardcover on eBay and Abebooks.  

©Janet Farrar Worthington

Note:  I am an Amazon affiliate, so if you do click a link and buy a book, I will theoretically make a small amount of money, but I’m just starting this thing, so I don’t even know how that works.   Still, full disclosure, etc.

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