cover image Swimming Lessons

Swimming Lessons

Betsy Jay. Rising Moon Books, $15.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-87358-685-6

Despite the title, most of this debut children's book for both author and artist consists of excuses to avoid the water. When Jane's mother insists she must learn to swim, Jane rejects every reason to take the plunge. When her mother says that everyone swims, Jane says that cats don't, and tells her mother that she's ""a cat on the inside. If you make me get in the water, bad things will happen."" When her mother tries to persuade her with fashion, ""I told Momma, Dinosaur bathing suit or not, I am never going to get in that swimming pool."" Even at the edge of the pool, Jane defiantly crosses her arms and inveighs against swimming; her stubbornness is magnified by her stiff brown pigtails, her sharp nose and her decisive glare through pointy glasses. She won't budge from dry land--that is, until mean Jimmy chortles, ""Chickens and girls can't swim."" Osiecki combines jagged black outlines with lucid, computer-generated colors of deep blue, rosy pink and mint green. Her scratchboard technique adds a hand-hewn quality to the sharp edges, and it complements the text, which floats across the pages in uneven ripples. With Jane's nervous, nonstop chatter and spontaneous reaction to the swimming challenge, the author effectively shows the process of overcoming fears. If the narrator is a tad too loquacious about her predicament, readers still can relate to her anxiety and her strong line of defense. Ages 5-8. (May)