Customer Reviews

Island Boy (Picture Puffins)

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2 star:		(1)
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Through the eyes of Matthias we watch the times change from a bucolic country life by the sea to a vacation haven for the rich and wealthy mainlanders. But throughout Matthias and his family strive to keep the island beautiful and respect the old ways passing them on from one generation to the next. The pastoral illustrations convey the warmth of this possibly best of Barbara Cooney's tales. Boys will especially like it, although my daughters loved it, too.

Having grown up in the exact area this book is written about, I can say with certainly that the pictures are so realistic and gorgeous they made me cry. They capture exactly the houses, fields, seas and trees of the mid-coast Maine region. The story is wonderful also. I love children's book that cover a whole life as this one does---we follow the main character from his babyhood until his death, and see how his life closely connected to the sea and the land affects so many around him. In doing so, we see a little Maine history presented---the age of the sea captain and the age of the "rusticators" buying up the beautiful land and sometimes reducing the natives to working for them, but NEVER being servants to them. The maps on the endpages fascinated my older son. They are of I think a slightly fantasy Maine, with some places being real places and others renamed, and he loved trying to see what was really what, as he knows the area to some extent.

I would say this would be a wonderful addition to your picture book library, as most Cooney books are!

I have enjoyed reading this book to children for years (I'm a teacher). My two sons, ages 9 and 6, still request that I read it to them when we read aloud to each other. The story is a classic tale of the cycles of life, and how you really CAN go home again. I always cry at the end. I recommend it for ages 3 and up. Get ready to answer some weighty kid questions.

Let me get this out of the way: As a kid, before I fell asleep at night, I would make up stories about a family who lived on a farming island off the coast of Maine and had twelve children, six boys and six girls. (The major difference between this book and my story was that my narrator was the middle girl, named Inga, and had braided blond pigtails.)

Anyway, just based on that childhood bedtime hobby, I was bound to love this book. It is one of the very best picture books I've ever read, right up there with "Liza Lou and the Yeller Belly Swamp". The maps are lovely, the illustrations are amazing. They are done in the folk art style, and are absolutely beautiful and very detailed.

The prose and illustrations match, somehow- spare, yet rich. Childlike, but very appealing to adults. It's hard to explain, but it's the same kind of magic that a great kids' animated movie has- the kids love it ALMOST as much as the parents.

Part of me wishes it was a novel, so it wouldn't be over so quickly. And part me thinks, "Why mess with perfection?"

Island Boy tells the story of boy in Maine growing up on and around the ocean. The Island that he was raised on in his youth and its passing from generation to generation is the central theme.

In terms that a child can understand, the book captures the transition of the island. The illustrations are lovely telling the story of making food, milking cows, and living on the ocean.

I think that this is a great book. It is not just for small children but for people of all ages. It is a moving story about the life and death of a man who spends most of it on one island. We can only envy him.

This book is DEPRESSING! I have nothing against children's books dealing with death, but in this one, grandpa just up and drowns at the end. Very sad.