Bobo the Sailor Man! by Eileen Rosenthal (review)

Little boy Willy, Bobo the stuffed monkey, and Earl the cat (I Must Have Bobo!, BCCB 2/11) are back again, this time as explorers of nature. Tromping through the woods, Willy delights in his finds, including mushrooms, acorns, and a fuzzy caterpillar, but when he spies a bucket and a river, things really get exciting. Willy dubs Bobo “a sailor man,” places him into the bucket, and sets him adrift in the water, but soon Bobo and his bucket become stranded, lodged against a fallen log in the river. While Willy runs for something to help, Earl calmly trots across some stepping stones and retrieves Bobo from the bucket. Willy misses this, however, and uses a fishing pole to pull out the bucket with such a flourish that lands it on top of Earl and the already-rescued Bobo. Willy’s narration and his actions are authentically those of an exuberant young child, as he expresses amazement at the natural world or impetuously puts Bobo in the river without thinking about the consequences. The retro comic-like art, drawn in pencil on cream-colored pages and colored digitally, is as simple and childlike as the text. Much of the drawn backgrounds are colored only minimally, if at all, putting the focus on the more intense colors of Willy and his clothing, Bobo, and the bright red bucket. Pair this with any of Helen Oxenbury’s wonderful Tom and Pippo books for a satisfying toy-story session or read prior to a similar nature expedition.