cover image The Little House from the Sea

The Little House from the Sea

Birgitta Gedin. R & S Books, $12.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-91-29-58770-8

A small boat, wrecked in a storm, is salvaged and from its lumber a house is built. The little house, with views of the sea in all directions, harbors this memory only in the form of a longing to sail ``to'' the horizon. When he convinces the North Wind to blow him into the sea, the little house, in the ensuing gale, faces the terrible memories of his past. Left alone once more, he finds a friend in a cormorant who has been dropping philosophical hints as to the nature of horizon-searching. The opening lines of this story hold a promise of poignancy in the little house's plight. But the story has lapses of sentimentalism, and jarring anthropomorphized imagessuch as the tears running down the house's windows. That abrupt element is also found in one of the pictures, of the North Wind, with an eyeball and pursed lips, blowing up a storm. But most of the watercolors are done in spare, light-filled brushstrokes that keenly reflect the longing of the tale. Ages 3-up. (Oct.)