Safe Harbor: Little Blue House Beside the Sea by Jo Ellen Bogart

THERE'S A SPECIAL PLACE FOR ME.

A LITTLE BLUE HOUSE BESIDE THE SEA.

Walking home from school, a girl waves goodbye to her schoolmates, heading for home. She walks past a little town with clapboard houses, stair-stepping up a cliff beside the ocean, where ships pull in their nets and make for a harbor watched over by a lighthouse. Laundry flaps in the seabreeze beside houses painted in blue-green and red, true blue or white. Puffins with beaks full of fish waddle up the dunes past a beached dory, and bees buzz in the flowers. And below, in the bay humpback whales play, breeching and sounding and spounting spray.

As the moon begins to rise, the girl reaches her snug little house, makes a pot of tea, and sits by her window to watch the boats scud toward their port. The wind rises, too, and a gale blows over the village, as the girl sits safe from the storm.

THERE'S NO PLACE SO DEAR TO ME

AS MY LITTLE HOUSE BESIDE THE SEA.

Jo Ellen Bogart's lovely story in rhyme, Little Blue House Beside the Sea (Tilbury House, 2020), creates that comforting sense of a safe harbor, a place of security and belonging that every child needs, and artist Carme' Lemniscates moving mixed media (watercolors, acrylics, collage, and monotypes) are extraordinary, solid and yet vibrant, making that dream come to life. Whether our seaside dream is of seagreen deeps and whales or warm azure waters and leaping dolphins, there is that beautiful "place in the mind" in the house beside the sea where this book belongs. Says School Library Journal, "A fantastic addition to any children’s library."