Richard Henderson (1) (1924–)

1. First Sail by Richard Henderson, illustrated by Jennifer Heyd Wharton and published by Tidewater Publishers 2007, is an Informative picture book about a boy and a girl who go out on a sail boat for the day. The book is designed to help “new sailors learn the ropes.” As an avid boater I absolutely loved this book. My favorite parts would be the illustrations, the nautical vignettes on the side, and the attention to detail that the author gave to nautical terms and boating in general. The illustrations in this picture book are magnificent watercolors that bring out the detail in the painting and enhance the words of the book. A great example of this is on pages 9 and 23. Page 9 is a beautiful watercolor illustration of multiple sailboats heading out to the bay. The there is a beautiful sunrise in the distance and the town getting smaller and smaller in the background. What is interesting is that all the sail boats look very plain except for the main one “Gull’s Wing”. The sailboat is full of great detail that really highlights different parts of the boat. I could easily see the details of the rudder and the mainsail. The author put even greater detail in the mainsail highlighting the Batten’s Clew and Leech. On page 23 is a vignette of the types of clouds that all sailors must be aware of. Theses clouds are drawn with great detail and helped me to think about the types of clouds I see. What would really help someone who has never been on a boat before are the nautical vignettes on the side of each page. These act as visual dictionary to the terms used in the story of the book. An example of this is the different types of markers and buoys on page 11 such as: a nun buoy, a can, a junction/obstruction, a midchannel marker, and a lighted midchannel buoy. They even go into detail on the definition of the buoys for the non-boating reader. For example they have the saying “red right returning” as a rhyme for a definition. This is to let people know that the red buoy should be ion the right when returning to the harbor. It is clear by the authors detail in the story that He is an avid boater. The author rights very detailed paragraphs about the main characters on their sailing day. On page 19 the author goes into detail about the different types of sail boats. The author explains the types of sailboats but in a way young boaters can understand. He describes that the difference between two sail boats are how they are “rigged” or set up. The two main themes of the book are education and self-exploration. The main purpose of this book is to educate the reader on the basics of sailing. Our main character Adam goes on a small sailboat trip of self-exploration as he finds the joy of sailing within himself.… (más)