The Castle Builder: Story and Pictures

A young boy fills his bucket with wet sand to build a sandcastle. Soon the walls are raised and towers reach toward the sky. Carefully placing his little toy inside the castle gate, he becomes Sir Christopher, builder of castles who tames a roaring dragon and battles the ship of the Black Knights, driving it back to the sea. But one thing goes awry with the boy's special creation: he cannot order the waves to stop pounding on the castle walls. What's left is nothing but a day's dreaming on the sandy beach, and the boy vows to try again tomorrow. Nolan's poetic construction conjoins two opposing imagesshort-lived sandcastles and the everlasting sands. Black quill-pen dots form a mosaic that outlines the boy's microworld, creating photograph-like pictures in halftones that exhibit startling clarity. Ages 5-8. (August)