Book Title: Ste-e-e-e-eamboat a-Comin’!
Author: Jill Esbaum
Illustrator: Adam Rex
Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Year Published: 2005
Availability: Click for an available copy from Amazon
When Kirkus reviewed this book when it was published, they mentioned the wonderful illustrations by Adam Rex as being similar to Norman Rockwell. So, imagine Normal Rockwell illustrations from the 1860s when steamboats travelled the Mississippi River. The lyrical text tells the story of what life was like in a river town on the day a steamboat arrived at the docks. A sleepy town would rise from its slumber upon the arrival of a steamboat. Unsurprisingly, life in a sleepy river town goes back to normal when the paddlewheel takes the steamboat back on down the Mississippi. Jill Esbaum, inspired by a few paragraphs from Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, brings the arrival of a steamboat to town completely to life with vivid pictures within her text which transport each and every reader to the gangplank among the rush of passengers. Be careful.
Reading Ste-e-e-e-eamboat a-Comin’! is a history lesson your children will find fun to learn. They won’t even know they are learning American History. Parents and grandparents might also learn a thing or two and enjoy themselves at the same exact time.
And I almost forgot to mention, Ste-e-e-e-eamboat a-Comin’! won numerous awards including the 2006 IRA Notable Children’s Book and the Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year award.
If you’ve read Ste-e-e-e-eamboat a-Comin’! to your children or grandchildren, we’d love to know your thoughts. Please share your thoughts below.
.
Buy Ste-e-e-e-eamboat a-Comin’! via Amazon.com
.
.
.
