The Red Canoe

Gilbert recounts a red canoe’s life with its first owner, a light-skinned boy who grows, over many adventurous summers launching the vessel, into a young man in the years leading up to a faraway war. The young man cannot “roam and fish when others his age were... bravely laying down their lives,” and so the canoe awaits his return. After years of neglect in a forgotten boathouse, where raccoon and mouse families make their homes, a dark-skinned boy discovers the red canoe and sets himself to fixing it like new, taking up the role of the craft’s faithful companion. Meticulously cross-hatched illustrations in sepia tones evoke a sense of innocence befitting a story of childhood happiness lost and found again. Bucolic lake and country settings brim with fine details that further underline the book’s themes of timelessness and ephemerality. Ages 6–10. (Mar.)