Go Fish

Go Fish (the book is faded from library use)

Grade 1-3-- Grandfather and Thomas, who appeared in Stolz's picture book, Storm in the Night (Harper, 1988), return in a liberally illustrated beginning chapter book. Cummings confines herself to watercolors in shades of gray on white. On almost every page are depictions of the actions or ornamental motifs. Grandfather and Thomas are a family of two, "semi-poor" and dependent on food that they catch or produce themselves, plus their cat, Ringo. They begin the day by fishing for trout, and finish it with a game of cards (Go fish, of course) and a story. The before-you-were-born hurricane, the grandfather as a small boy himself listening to the stories of his own grandfather, the line of ancestors leading back to ancient African cities, the fossils preserved in the limestone of long dried-up seas--all these are the elements of a single summer day. Colorful details of life at the seashore abound: hummingbirds in the bougainvillea, the seawall rocks at low tide, blowfish and flounder, sea oats and sand spurs, coquinas and herons. Stolz evokes the spirit of childhood with graceful description and metaphor. At day's end, Thomas glimpses his own future, recalling this present day as a past golden-time, telling tales to an as yet unborn child. 

• Age Level = 5-9
• Book Author = Mary Stolz
• Book Material = Hardback
• Book Publisher = Harper Collins
• Copyright = c1991
• Grade Level = Elementary
• Illustrator = Pat Cummings
• Condition = Used- Fair
• Subject = Literature