- Hardcover: 32 pages
- Publisher: Red Deer Press; 1 edition (Jun 16 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0889952841
- ISBN-13: 978-0889952843
- Product Dimensions: 28.8 x 22.7 x 1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 404 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,214,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Books in Canada
Gwyn, along with her parents and younger sister, Linden, have just moved from Vancouver to a new home in Nova Scotia on Mahone Bay. Gwyn is terribly upset about having been forced to abandon familiar surroundings and her Vancouver friends for what looks like an old house in the middle of nowhere. Anne Laurel Carter neatly captures a child's newly-arrived at sense of isolation as well as that about Mahone Bay which, by way of negative comparison, manages to assert its distinct beauty despite Gwyn's inability to appreciate it.
"In the night, our room echoes with empty spaces. I hold Rose Bear tight. There are no friends next door, no whoosh of cars, no smell of rain on pavement. Only my sister and the moon, the sigh of the wind, and the smell of the ocean."
Reluctantly Gwyn settles into her new home and takes up a daily routine of helping her parents refurbish the house, clear out overgrown hackmatack, and plant irises and lupins. School starts, and then wonderful things begin to happen: Gwyn makes a friend, Megan, who lives down the road; she discovers the pleasures of picking cranberries "hidden under shiny dark leaves", and of sitting in a large pine tree that overlooks her property's salt marsh, a place that resembles "little puddles of water between big islands of grass"; her uncle Pete takes the family out on his boat to show them his wondrous underwater mussel 'farm'; and later, the family gathers in their new kitchen to sample the steamed mussels and eat the cranberry pancakes Gwyn's father rustles up with maple syrup from the neighbour's sugar bush.
Months pass, and with the change in seasons, Gwyn and Linden enjoy observing, from their newly-built treehouse atop Gwyn's favorite pine tree, how, with Christmas approaching, the salt marsh "seems wrapped in white tissue paper." And for a Christmas gift, instead of the horse Gwyn had made her parents promise to get her when she agreed to the move to Nova Scotia, she receives an aquarium filled with seahorses, a fitting addition to Gwyn's new home by the sea.
The illustrators, Alan and Lea Daniel, are to be commended for their expert watercolours. These communicate as much of the story as the text.
Olga Stein (Books in Canada)
"In the night, our room echoes with empty spaces. I hold Rose Bear tight. There are no friends next door, no whoosh of cars, no smell of rain on pavement. Only my sister and the moon, the sigh of the wind, and the smell of the ocean."
Reluctantly Gwyn settles into her new home and takes up a daily routine of helping her parents refurbish the house, clear out overgrown hackmatack, and plant irises and lupins. School starts, and then wonderful things begin to happen: Gwyn makes a friend, Megan, who lives down the road; she discovers the pleasures of picking cranberries "hidden under shiny dark leaves", and of sitting in a large pine tree that overlooks her property's salt marsh, a place that resembles "little puddles of water between big islands of grass"; her uncle Pete takes the family out on his boat to show them his wondrous underwater mussel 'farm'; and later, the family gathers in their new kitchen to sample the steamed mussels and eat the cranberry pancakes Gwyn's father rustles up with maple syrup from the neighbour's sugar bush.
Months pass, and with the change in seasons, Gwyn and Linden enjoy observing, from their newly-built treehouse atop Gwyn's favorite pine tree, how, with Christmas approaching, the salt marsh "seems wrapped in white tissue paper." And for a Christmas gift, instead of the horse Gwyn had made her parents promise to get her when she agreed to the move to Nova Scotia, she receives an aquarium filled with seahorses, a fitting addition to Gwyn's new home by the sea.
The illustrators, Alan and Lea Daniel, are to be commended for their expert watercolours. These communicate as much of the story as the text.
Olga Stein (Books in Canada)
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 2–Gwyn's family moves from Vancouver to a new home on a salt marsh at Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. The mildly told story opens with their arrival and follows Gwyn's transition over her first six months there. The child, a sad, stubborn objector to her displacement, grows into a satisfied and grateful participant in her new environment. The steps in her adjustment are juxtaposed with the naively positive, indiscriminately enthusiastic energy of her younger sister, Linden. Overcoming disappointments, developing flexibility, and releasing doubts are elements of a relatively mature child's adjustment. My Home Bay's strong point is its recognition and development of this fact, a tribute to the hard work children of Gwyn's age must perform. The story is enriched by a sweet and trusting interaction between the sisters as they travel their respective paths to peace in their new home. Gwyn has exacted three promises of her parents before agreeing to the move: fiddle lessons (quickly granted), a tree house (built by Mom and Dad in the autumn), and a horse (she gets an aquarium of sea horses at Christmas). At the fulfillment of the third promise, Gwyn belongs to Mahone Bay. Watercolor illustrations are pale and a little out of focus, sometimes achieving a positive dreamy effect, sometimes seeming washed out and leaving facial expressions obscure. Some paintings have a static appearance, as if posed. Overall, though, this agreeable tale contributes a useful perspective to the high demand for picture books about moving.–Liza Graybill, Worcester Public Library, MA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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