When I was little, I loved the book Little Toot, but I haven't thought much about tugboats in years, so I got a nice little burst of nostalgia with Mercer Mayer's Just a Tugboat,
in which Little Critter imagines himself the captain of an incredibly
hardy little tugboat that comes to the rescue again and again.
This particular volume is quite a bit shorter than most Little Critter
books, and frankly, I find it a bit boring. I think playing with a
tugboat (big enough to accommodate a mouse) in the creek sounds like a
very pleasant way for a six-year-old to pass an afternoon, but we don't
see much of this actual playing. In fact, we only see it in one two-page
spread at the beginning and another at the end.
The middle is
taken up by Captain Critter hauling a cruise ship carrying his friends
to shore and lugging a great big tanker out to the ocean. That's pretty
much it. For one, his boat seems much too small for such tasks. For
another, there's really no conflict throughout the story at all. A ship
is in distress, and he helps. No muss, no fuss. Not much story either.
What I like best about this book is the variety of marine life. We're
treated to pelicans, crabs and seagulls - and that's not a lot, but
they're animals we don't see that often, and they're cute. There's also
an interesting assortment of creatures on the boat Captain Critter
rescues, including giraffes, rabbits and hippos.
But the story is over so quickly, and so little seems to happen (though Critter has saved the day twice in his imagination), Just a Tugboat
fails to capture my fancy. Kids going through a boat phase may latch
onto Little Critter's enthusiasm; otherwise, you just might want to
consider a different book.
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