Book Title: Scuffy the Tugboat
Author: Gertrude Crampton
Illustrator: Tibor Gergely
Publisher: Golden Books
Year Published: 1946
Availability: Click for an available copy from Amazon
Gertrude Crampton edited textbooks and taught after receiving a teaching degree from the University of Michigan. She then went on to write two best selling picture books for Golden Books, Scuffy the Tugboat and Tootle.
Scuffy the Tugboat is a simple story with text that flows easily throughout its pages and the tale it tells is one of a tugboat who floats in a bathtub, but wants to go so much further in the world. He wants to do “bigger things.” The owner of a toy store and his son take this bathtub toy tugboat and set it free. Scuffy the Tugboat travels through a brook, a creek, a small river and a larger river. With all of this adventure, Scuffy comes to realize, there was peace, calm and happiness back in the bathtub.
This Scuffy the Tugboat tale could be the simple belief that there is no place like home. However, it could be a bit deeper. In the early years of picture book popularity, the days of Margaret Wise Brown’s plethora of books, early picture books tended to highlight the good of the agrarian rural and simple life and contrasted it with the big bad world at large or the urban landscape. Some intellectuals bemoaned that writing concept, but me, I’d never discard a book simply for that reason. I like simple. I like rural. I’m not a big fan of big cities. I love traditional times and old fashioned picture book texts and illustrations. This is one reason I love Scuffy the Tugboat and recommend it for others, even today’s generation of toddlers.
If you’ve read Scuffy the Tugboat to your children or grandchildren, we’d love to know your thoughts on this nautical tale from Gertrude Crampton.
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