What child does not dream of making a better world? Quentin Blake has captured the hopes and desires that drive children’s sense of adventure in a beautiful, sensitive and passionate book, The Sailing Boat in the Sky (Jonathan Cape pound;10.99). Blake’s expressive economy of line and colour creates an uplifting score based on the story of two children who create a sailing boat on wheels from an old beached wreck.
The craft scuds across the sands and lifts into the skies, but not before Isobel and Nicholas haul aboard a stork wounded by gunshot, the first of many victims of racism, violence or pollution to be rescued. The boat has echoes of the train which takes in animals endangered by man’s cruelty and greed, in John Burningham’s powerful picture book Oi! Get Off Our Train! (Red Fox pound;4.99).
Blake’s book, first published in France, resulted from a collaboration with teachers and pupils in Rochefort who were keen to produce a book about humanitarian problems. This initiated a year-long dialogue with 1,800 children world-wide, whose names appear on the endpapers. The powerful message conveyed in Blake’s wonderfully quirky fashion is that children everywhere are united by the same hopes and fears.
