Hello Lighthouse

Painted with the featherlight touch that distinguishes Caldecott Medalist Blackall’s work, this graceful account of a lighthouse keeper’s life celebrates a lost era. While it was lonely and sometimes dangerous, watching the lighthouse was monastic in its simplicity: “He tends the light and writes in the logbook.” The lighthouse keeper readies his home for the arrival of his wife, who nurses him when he falls ill; then he helps her as she gives birth to their first child. Soon the family receives word that the lighthouse is to be fitted with a mechanical light, and their idyll comes to a serene end. Many spreads, delicate as painted porcelain, depict the lighthouse amid the breaking waves and changing life of the ocean. Seals bask, whales pass, and the aurora borealis flickers overhead. Repeated images of circles echo the lighthouse’s circular rooms, from vignettes framed with nautical rope to a breathtaking sequence of the lighthouse-keeper’s wife walking through her labor, each moment like the hand on the face of a clock. It’s a jewel of a creation and a gift to those who dream of retreat. Ages 4–8. Agent: Nancy Gallt, Gallt + [em]Zacker Literary. (Apr.) [/em]