Customer Reviews

Whale Port

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Whale Port is a treat for anyone, young or old, interested in whaling and the role it played in American history. Through the fictional village of Tuckanucket, Mark and Gerald Foster take you on a wonderful, illustrated tour of the growing pains, and the triumphs and tragedies of a whaling town as it tries to maneuver through the powerful tides and currents of history, while remaining literally and figuratively afloat. The drawings are excellent, the story is dramatic and compelling, and the added background information at the bottom of each page makes the book that much richer. My eight year old son loves the book, and so do I. I highly recommend Whale Port to anyone who is fascinated by America's whaling heritage -- it is particularly appropriate for 8 to 14 year olds.

The son-father team of Mark and Gerald Foster have collaborated to produce an eye-pleasing book that not only offers a creative approach toward explaining the history of New England whaling over time, but is a crash course in all the terminology and processes related to the whaling industry, maritime trades that developed because of it, and other aspects of Colonial life.
I recommend this book for children AND adults who want to use it to prepare for, or supplement, a visit to any whaling point of interest, such as the New Bedford Whaling museum in Massachusetts, Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut, a whale watch, or any other whale-related tourist spot worldwide.
This book also provides a starting point for those who want to learn to appreciate whales, understand how human action profoundly affects their survival on this planet, and gain historical knowledge from which to decide how to act today to protect these important and endangered mammals.
The exquisitely detailed, labeled illustrations by Gerald Foster are educational in and of themselves, but together with Mark's comprehensive historical instruction, this book becomes a gem. Well done!

I was extremely pleased with this, although I wasn't sure what it was when I ordered it.

A big fan of Melville, I do everything I can to collect books on whaling and the topics related to it.

I thought this was just going to be a useless kid's book, but had many useful and informative illustrations that taught me quite a lot!

Illustrated more or less like a Richard Scarry book, but I think it would be fair to characterize it as geared to adults.

What a satisfying purchase.

(Disclosure for what is worth: I went to school with one of the authors in my youth). This is a clear, well-written, fabulously illustrated book. I hate to use the word "delightful," but it really is, well, delightful. I agree with other reviewers, that this is not exclusively a children's book. I listened to an audio version of Moby Dick over the past winter, and the pictures in Whaleport made sense of the descriptions I had heard but could not completely visualize. I suspect I'll pick this up periodically just to look at the illustrations. Bravi!

Going to give this to the grandchildren next year to explain what whaling was all about and using in my genealogy work about my family that started in East Hampton, Long Island, NY