Anodyne
Sunday, May 15, 2005
 
Yet another book from childhood: Holling Clancy Holling's Paddle-to-the-sea. My dad's favorite book as a child. Terrific watercolor paintings, and dozens of little marginal drawings that remind me of the cartoon map of Canada placemats at North Vancouver's Tomahawk Grill.

"The boy looked at Paddle lashed by fish line above his bunk. Wave and wind had worn him smooth and there was little of his second coat of paint left. But he still smiled, and the boy liked his smile. It made Paddle look as though he had seen many things and understood them all.

'A long journey, you have made,' the boy would say. 'Now you are on a ship. Do you hear the wind in the rigging? Do you feel the roll of the waves? Do you know that you are sailing across a great ocean to France? Are you not surprised?'"


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