Overview
As they wait for the arrival of a new baby, Maita tells her great-grandniece the story of her remarkable childhood. Living sheltered on a lighthouse island with only her parents for company, Maita always longed for a sibling-longed not to be the only child the ragged island knew. And then one icy night, howling winds blew wave after wave against the shore, and from that fearsome storm came a sea chest-a gift that would change Maita's life forever.
From a beguiling Maine legend, newcomer Toni Buzzeo has fashioned this exquisitely lyrical, intimate tale, illustrated in vibrant oil paintings by Mary GrandPre. Together they have created a book of classic beauty and resonance.
A young girl listens as her great-aunt, a lighthouse keeper's daughter, tells of her childhood living on a Maine island, and of the infant that washed ashore after a storm.
Synopsis
As they wait for the arrival of a new baby, Maita tells her great-grandniece the story of her remarkable childhood. Living sheltered on a lighthouse island with only her parents for company, Maita always longed for a sibling-longed not to be the only child the ragged island knew. And then one icy night, howling winds blew wave after wave against the shore, and from that fearsome storm came a sea chest-a gift that would change Maita's life forever.
From a beguiling Maine legend, newcomer Toni Buzzeo has fashioned this exquisitely lyrical, intimate tale, illustrated in vibrant oil paintings by Mary GrandPré. Together they have created a book of classic beauty and resonance.
Publishers Weekly
While waiting for a "stranger," a girl snuggles with her great-great-aunt, looking at a photo of a small child "touched so often with hope, the edges curl." This intriguing beginning launches a touching story-within-a-story. Auntie Maita describes her loneliness as the only child of a Maine lighthouse keeper. One morning, after a fierce storm, Maita and her father find a sea chest wrapped in mattresses. Inside, they find a baby and this sorrowful note: "We commit this child into the hands of God. May He save her." Basing her plot on a local legend, Buzzeo, a Maine school librarian making her picture book debut, writes with such vivid, sensory-rich language that readers are almost certain to feel Maita's yearning for companionship and, later, her joy at having a sister. GrandPr 's (illustrator of the Harry Potter books) oil paintings, too, communicate the characters' shifting moods. During the storm, Mama and Maita peer through the window at Papa as he lurches against the wind toward the lighthouse. In a shadowy, sea-like, blue-green room, their candlelit faces exude a deep but stoically controlled fear. Back in the present, the girl looks expectantly at the quilt-lined sea chest, which "waits open on the table, for the tiny stranger my mama and papa have gone to fetch from so far across the wide Atlantic. To be my sister." Poignant, poetic and movingly illustrated, this story resonates with sisterly love. Ages 5-up. (Aug.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
While waiting for a "stranger," a girl snuggles with her great-great-aunt, looking at a photo of a small child "touched so often with hope, the edges curl." This intriguing beginning launches a touching story-within-a-story. Auntie Maita describes her loneliness as the only child of a Maine lighthouse keeper. One morning, after a fierce storm, Maita and her father find a sea chest wrapped in mattresses. Inside, they find a baby and this sorrowful note: "We commit this child into the hands of God. May He save her." Basing her plot on a local legend, Buzzeo, a Maine school librarian making her picture book debut, writes with such vivid, sensory-rich language that readers are almost certain to feel Maita's yearning for companionship and, later, her joy at having a sister. GrandPr 's (illustrator of the Harry Potter books) oil paintings, too, communicate the characters' shifting moods. During the storm, Mama and Maita peer through the window at Papa as he lurches against the wind toward the lighthouse. In a shadowy, sea-like, blue-green room, their candlelit faces exude a deep but stoically controlled fear. Back in the present, the girl looks expectantly at the quilt-lined sea chest, which "waits open on the table, for the tiny stranger my mama and papa have gone to fetch from so far across the wide Atlantic. To be my sister." Poignant, poetic and movingly illustrated, this story resonates with sisterly love. Ages 5-up. (Aug.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.Children's Literature
Based on a legend about the Hendricks Head Lighthouse, this beautiful book tells the story of a lighthouse family that, after weathering a terrible storm, find a chest washed up on the shore. Inside is a beautiful baby girl with the note, "We commit this child into the hands of God. May He save her. Captain and Mrs. Donald Warren." Maita, the girl who lives at the lighthouse, falls in love with her new little sister and calls her Seaborne and they enjoy a wonderful upbringing together on their island home. The prose is just breathtaking in its description of their lives—"I taught her how to gently probe for eggs in the dimness under the porch. We took turns circling double yolk days..." The story is told in retrospect by an aged Maita to her great niece as she waits for her parents to bring her brand new sister home from somewhere across the Atlantic. The oil paintings by Mary GrandPre (best known for her wonderful Harry Potter illustrations; and why in the world when they put Harry P. on all kinds of merchandise they didn't stick with her pictures, I'll never know), draw you into the book from page one. Her close-up portrait of little Seaborne when they first find her will bring a tear to your eye. A heartwarming family and adoption tale. 2002, Dial Books for Young Readers,— Sharon Levin