Sal Boat

Starred review from June 27, 2022
“Sal loved the water. He liked to imagine it moving under his feet.” With junk from his mother’s garage and pickings from local businesses, he starts building. In the family’s harbor town, word spreads quickly, and soon the project is the recipient of advice and even jokes: “Looks like a sinker!” But Sal, who presents as white, doesn’t take any guff. “This isn’t a game,” he says to other kids who overrun the worksite, “it’s my BOAT.” Heder (How Do You Dance?) works in watercolor and sculptural pencil, scrawling words of dialogue over the art and capturing the ramshackle charms of harbor life via piled-up lobster traps and other detritus. In a film-worthy climax, Sal runs into a potentially tragic difficulty, and the diverse community of people that teased him before rallies to his rescue. Heder zooms in on the expressions that cross Sal’s face as he realizes his error: frustration, tearful despair, and resolve. Sal’s creation is the kind of inventive structure that beckons readers who daydream about adventure, and the resourceful realization of his vision offers deep satisfaction. Ages 4–8. Agent: Stephen Barr, Writers House.

Starred review from June 1, 2022
A boy can build a boat by himself, but launching it is another matter. Small in body but large in determination, solitary Sal starts his newest project by ransacking his mom's garage and then proceeding to gather old boards, discarded paint, and seemingly random junk from all over his small seaside town. What he constructs has walls, windows, and a peaked roof. But Sal shrugs off the skeptical comments of passersby ("What, have they never seen a boat before? Zero imagination in this town"). When it's done, it is indeed a (house)boat and, in the luminous illustrations, a magnificent one, solidly assembled from bric-a-brac and splashed with intense colors. Triumph gives way to frustration, though, as an onlooker's question about how he's going to drag it down to the shoreline leads to a series of devastating failures. Along with effectively capturing the setting's small-town feel in her watercolors, Heder depicts a light-skinned protagonist whose changing facial expressions and body language offer a positive study as he goes from intense, scowling concentration to delight, dismay, then despair, resignation, and, bit by bit, anger. But just as he's about to smash his boat to splinters, up come all the townsfolk with flags, balloons, and a construction hoist to pitch in and see the great launch done right. A final view of the floating house out on the water at sunset, strung with party lights and surrounded by boatloads of diversely hued neighbors, ends the episode on a properly celebratory note. (This book was reviewed digitally.) A literally buoyant reminder that sometimes it takes a village. (Picture book. 5-8)

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Starred review from August 1, 2022
Preschool-Grade 2 *Starred Review* Sal loves the water, and whether he's at his mom's house, at his dad's house, or riding in the backseat with his older brother, he can't stop thinking about it. What he needs is a boat, and as a kid with no job but to dream big, he decides to build his own. Scenic watercolors, both loosely rendered and full of wonderful details, show the young engineer at work. Full-page illustrations depict Sal gathering supplies from all over his seaside neighborhood, medium-sized scenes home in on his initial building, and smaller spot art takes readers up close as the boy mixes mud, hammers boards, spackles cracks, and performs other construction jobs. While the narration appears in a typed font, hand-written dialogue reflects his neighbors' curiosity and comments (some helpful and some not so much). Soon readers, along with Sal's neighbors, can see what the boy doesn't: his boat resembles a house. When Sal realizes his boat is not launchable, his growing frustration is palpable through the use of differently sized illustrations once again. Just as he's about to destroy all his effort, his neighbors pitch in (without comments this time), helping Sal hoist his boat for a proper launch and achieve his dream. A lovely, luminous evening boat regatta concludes this thoughtful tale of imagination, determination, and community.

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