by Sam Juliano
There’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away. -Sarah Kay
There are few settings on the planet to match the shoreline when it comes to sensory overload. A splashing trek though the sand as the ankle is gently nudged by the foamy caress of an expiring wave, and more often than not the traveler will taste the salt from the water particles that permeate the air at the place where land and water converge. The splashing sound that provides the audio accompaniment for the most ravishing of sight lines fully validates what the esteemed Japanese-American poet Sarah Kay meant when she describes this singular elemental rendezvous. Of course the renowned author of The Seashore Book, Charlotte Zolotow employs her own inimitable measure of lyricism to one of life’s more invigorating experiences, one first encountered during childhood and then recalled later in elegiac terms. Zolotow, who passed away near four years ago at the age of 98 is a seminal figure in children’s literature, one who famously collaborated with Maurice Sendak on the Caldecott Honor winning Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present, brings a descriptive delicacy and unobtrusive prose to a wholly intimate immersion of nature, armed with her masterful similes and expert delineation of size, color and temperature. Zolotow invites the reader to feel what her fictional protagonists are experiencing, helping them along with pitch-perfect words, which are more than ably enhanced by the remarkable watercolor art by national treasure Wendell Minor.
Minor did the original art for the first release of the book in the early 90’s. He has revisited the work with a kind of carefree wistfulness, imbuing his realistic tapestries with the impressionist grandeur he is known for. The design of this aquatic encore is fittingly negotiated in shades of blue, aquamarine and cresting whites, all subject only to the time of day. The famed illustrator has long specialized in nature settings, though the variety and breath of his work has featured artists (Edward Hopper Paints His World), presidents and astronauts, literary figures (Willa Cather and Thoreau), animals and holidays. His breathtaking canvasses have appeared in best-selling works by David McCollough and Harper Lee, and some of his most popular titles are in collaboration with his wife Florence Friedman Minor (2017’s magnificent How to Be a Bigger Bunny among them). Though his books have been wildly popular with children, adults and collectors, and have received superlative reviews from Kirkus, The Horn Book, The School Library Journal and numerous other publications, he has yet to score with the American Library Association’s Caldecott committees. Much like Cary Grant, who despite being one of the greatest actors in movie history, failed to receive an Oscar due to bad timing, competition or competing against himself in a calendar year, Minor, who has created over fifty children’s book in his illustrious career is still looking for the lucky break that has in some instances propelled a number of artists with far less prolific catalogs.
The rapturous dust jacket cover replicating the book’s third painting of a child trotting along the sand as waves invisibly erode and then reinstate the point of union showcases childhood exhilaration, the book’s dominant theme. One might recall Jonathan Livingston Seagull while beholding the back panel, (duplicating the fifth painting) which highlights the full wing span of a white, black maned ocean bird. The end papers based in light brown, spotlight assorted shells and the most appropriate use of the flicking paint brush, with white specks and spills perfectly document a watery expanse. The handsome title page, adored by enlarged blue letters and a sandpiper being watched by a gull on the book’s lovely marine frontispiece.
The boy is quickly revealed as a seashore newbie, one who has actually lived in place at the other end of the geographical spectrum during his short life. He asks his mother about what he might expect at the beach as dawn breaks behind their mountain home. The mother plays the imagination game, first evoking the challenge of establishing a divider between the seascape and the sky. Minor illuminates the advent of a new day with an incandescent yellow-pink wash. The mother explains subtle but tangible color shifts usher in the sun’s first appearance, as Zolotow accelerates the miracle of the beach as a singular experience of witnessing the new day on location:
“It warms the cool sand. It turns the sea green, and the beach is golden gray. You run down to the water’s edge, one small dark spot against the brightness of the sand and sea.”
In this interactive scenario Zolotow offers some persuasive speculation of what the boy will do after eyeing ‘tiny brown snail shells and oyster shells, crusty gray outside and smooth pearly pink inside.” The boy is clearly amazed to hear that after he picks up the clamshell, the live clam inside will snap the shell closed as he holds it. Minor accentuates this sense of incredulity in striking close-up, depicting the green and blue-striped lad anchored in water over his ankles, stooped over a few feet off the shore. The majestic gull is seen airborne, having shed a now floating feather, which the mother insists the boy will retrieve prior to engaging in the trademark sand castle experience. Zolotow, as Mom superbly intimates that the cold water makes one skin feel like “peppermint” before being overcome by fatigue. To visualize the intimated siesta and temporary lull, Minor beautifully paints a lonely shore line and grassy indentations sedate and unperturbed, while in the forefront a retired pail and shovel provide proof of past activities.
Mom continues her dreamy re-creation, telling the boy while he sleeps she sees two little sandpipers scoot past him, but they do leave calling cards by way of claw prints in the sand. Then Zolotow considers the matter of all-encompassing power when she has the mother suggest that when the boy awakes there will seem to be nothing but “the sound of the wind and the rising and falling song of the waves.” Minor’s perennial shorebirds are etched handsomely in their cryptic brown and gray colored pattern, and inquisitive demeanor. The artist’s sole double page canvas is mainly leisurely bliss, though failing to mask a melancholic underpinning as if to suggest the entire seashore encounter is a painfully fleeting one. Gulls encircle above while a wide opening between grassy clusters reveals a red and white umbrella propped in the sand at a juncture when the tide is receding. They eat sandwiches and drink lemonade and remain still as small brown sand crabs brush against their feet. The illustrator’s depiction of a sand crab with its ubiquitous antennae and imposing claws are more in tune with some of the images from Roger Corman’s The Attack of the Crab Monsters, but Minor is in discovery mode, and as such his details and textures are more awe-inspiring than anything, right down to the layered dark blues and yellow layers to further delineate where water and sand come together.
A single engine airplane shadow on the sand -a possibly hint at the time period this book is set-allows for more unbridled joy in another Minor detailed overhead gem. As the day winds down -“long purple streaks of clouds are forming in the sky” and “the fishing pier we pass is white as a snowfall with hundreds of crying seagulls waiting for the fishing boats to come in when the sun sets” is visualized by hungry gulls descending on the dock. The airborne canvas is torquoise-tinged and buoyant. Minor saves some of his most ravishing tapestries as daylight ebbs away. He answers Zolotow’s splendid “the setting sun is a huge orange ball” with an extraordinary depiction of a pumpkin toned dune, where mother and sun take a look at the gorgeous approach of dusk. After such an exhaustively immersive day sleep comes fast for the young boy after a drowsy dinner and bath. Minor’s depiction of a lighthouse and its golden hued illumination under morphing purple skies is resplendent and my personal favorite. A enchanting nocturnal painting of the moon and a shooting star overlooking a confection of shells, clams and starfish and a grassy trek is succeeded by the bordered wooden fence illustration Minor previously used for the book’s initial release. Mom and boy walked in the distance having completed one of life’s more wondrous times. The dedication page features another lighthouse jewel in miniature.
The Seashore Book, as its distinguished author intended is an evocation of an experience not always readily available to those who live far away. Minor’s sublime brush strokes take the imaginations of readers to oddly familiar turf, where all the senses are employed, right down to that last grain and sand and ripple of water. For beach dwellers or those who yearn to be this is the real deal and so deserving of Caldecott Medal scrutiny.
Note: This is the first entry in the 2017 Caldecott Medal Contender series. The annual venture does not purport to predict what the committee will choose, rather it attempts to gauge what the writer feels should be in the running. In most instances the books that are featured in the series have been touted as contenders in various online round-ups, but for the ones that are not, the inclusions are a humble plea to the committee for consideration. It is anticipated the series will include in the neighborhood of around 30 titles; the order which they are being presented in is arbitrary, as every book in this series is a contender. Some of my top favorites of the lot will be done near the end. The awards will be announced in mid-February, hence the reviews will continue until around the end of January or a bit beyond.
