Noah's Seal
by Layn Marlow (Author) Layn Marlow (Illustrator)
In a picture-perfect ode to the perfect day at the beach, a young boy experiences the joys of being left alone to play and dream at the edge of a wild sea.
Waiting is hard. In a gentle multigenerational story that blurs the boundaries of real and imagined, Noah waits on shore while Nana fixes their sailboat. The boat will take them out to sea where the seals live, and Noah can hardly contain himself. In the meantime, he sculpts his own seal out of sand. Noah collects shells for the seal's speckled back, spiky dune grass for whiskers, two shiny pebbles for eyes, and a smiling line of seaweed for a mouth. He lies beside his new friend to watch the rolling sea until a storm blows in and Noah must take cover. Later, he wonders: did his seal swim away?
Readers will delight in pondering the mystery too in this sun-splashed book for young adventurers--an essential summer-vacation read.
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Kirkus
Powerful in its sweet, childlike simplicity. (Picture book. 3-8)
Publishers Weekly
Noah, a Black child wearing a red bucket hat, patiently waits on the beach “at the edge of the wild wide sea,” wishing that his Nana’s boat was sailing-ready. But Nana, a Black adult in a sea star–print tunic, is still working on fixing it. Noah wants desperately to see a seal, but since “Nana says they don’t like to come ashore here,” she encourages him to play, instead. When Noah digs aimlessly, dreaming, he soon discovers that the sand he’s thrown behind him looks just like a seal. He decorates it with care (“shells for the seal’s speckled back, spiky dune grass for whiskers”) before a sudden storm washes the seal away—revealing another surprise. From the third-person perspective, Marlow (You Make Me Smile) gently establishes Noah’s hopes. Place, action, and characters are closely observed in both the sensitive text and dynamic, dot-eyed human portrayals as soft washes of watercolor, paired with physical and digital collage, ground the natural setting. Noah’s wish is one that readers will share; watching as it is fulfilled in this sweet intergenerational narrative is a small, satisfying pleasure. Ages 3–7. (June)
Copyright 2021 Publisher's Weekly, LLC Used with Permission
JUV002170 - Juvenile Fiction | Animals | Marine Life
JUV032060 - Juvenile Fiction | Sports & Recreation | Water Sports
