Ocean Wide, Ocean Deep by Susan Lendroth, Raul Allen (Illustrator)

From the Publisher

Nineteenth-century Cape Cod is the backdrop for this lyrical picturebook about a young girl waiting for her father to return from an ocean journey. As the seasons pass, her baby brother learns to walk, storms come and go, and the girl wonders how her father is and whether he's thinking of her, too. Susan Lendroth's gentle, rhyming text pairs with first-time illustrator Ra?ã‚Ñ¢l All?©n's stunning illustrations to produce a timeless tale about the absence of a parent, and the power of love to cross distances as wide and deep as the ocean.

"Children in the contemporary equivalent of the narrator'¬?s situation-a son or daughter anxious about an absent parent'¬?s well-being-will appreciate both the distance afforded by the period setting and the comfort of the melodic language and happy ending."-Publishers Weekly"...set in the past, this book will speak to contemporary children who suffer the absence of a parent due to work, divorce, or war."-Washington Parent

Publishers Weekly

Moody illustrations in a marine palette will compel readers' attention in this rhyming story set in 19th-century Cape Cod, about the year a girl spends without her father. Using rhyming couplets, Lendroth's (Why Explore?) narrator imagines her father's progress as he sails to China on a trading mission: "I dream of silks in every hue/ and willowware of deepest blue." She measures the passage of time in the growth of her baby brother and in the changing of seasons, and she also suffers. A December storm prompts fears "that somewhere in a howling gale/ my father battles sleet and hail." In Allén's American picture book debut, he channels the soft-edged realism and absorption with light shared by 19th-century American painters to create an atmosphere of foreboding. Muted gray-greens and dusky blues dominate; even the summer sky is cloudy. Children in the contemporary equivalent of the narrator's situation-a son or daughter anxious about an absent parent's well-being-will appreciate both the distance afforded by the period setting and the comfort of the melodic language and happy ending. Ages 5-7. (Aug.)

Children's Literature

In a verse story part lullaby, part prayer, a 19th century New England girl beseeches the ocean to be gentle with her seafaring father. The book chronicles the many seasons of the man's absence and the growth of the narrator's brother from cradle-bound babe to chattery toddler. Especially poignant are the girl's private reflections—her whispered message to a seashell, her imaginings of the Chinese shops where her father finds jade, teak, willowware and silks. The delicate pencil-and-watercolor art reveals details of the life and landscape of old Cape Cod and beautifully captures the family's joy at the father's return. Though set in the past, this book will speak to contemporary children who suffer the absence of a parent due to work, divorce or war. Reviewer: Mary Quattlebaum

School Library Journal

K-Gr 3

In rhyming verse, Lendroth offers a hymn to the men who sailed from New England as part of the China trade in the 19th century, spinning the tale of a young girl left with her mother and baby brother while her father goes to sea: "Oh, ocean wide, ocean deep,/will you rock Papa to sleep?/He sailed tonight on the evening tide-/please keep him safe, oh, ocean wide." The tone is a quiet one of waiting while a year of ordinary events passes, but the family's love shines through: "Mama takes my hand and claps it tight-/her lullaby holds back the night." Allén's gorgeous, full-color paintings perfectly re-create the Cape Cod setting and convey the characters' emotions. Pair this offering with other picture books recounting New England life, like Donald Hall's Ox-Cart Man (Viking, 1979), and with poems such as John Masefield's "Sea-Fever," found in many collections including Caroline Kennedy's excellent A Family of Poems (Hyperion, 2005), for a lyrical celebration of times gone by.-Kathleen Whalin, York Public Library, ME

Kirkus Reviews

A gently rocking rhymed text takes the voice of a girl who misses her father. In a 19th-century Cape Cod village, she muses on how long a year can seem, while her father plies the China trade and she and her mother live their lives and raise her baby brother. As the baby learns to walk and then to speak, the seasons turn, summer to autumn to winter, until finally in spring Papa returns. The pictures, pencil and watercolor, finished with Photoshop, take the blues and greens of the sea and trace them in walls, quilts, clothing and sky. The cool watery tones match the lulling sound of the verse quite effectively, though the latter occasionally stumbles as it reaches to meet the meter. A four-word glossary-China trade, chops, teak and willowware-calls attention to itself with its brevity. (Picture book. 4-8)

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