This is a lovely picture book which celebrates, in accomplished rhyming verse, a child’s experiences with her grandfather in a red canoe out on the lake. The girl’s grandfather introduces her to the abundant life in and around this watery world: beavers, ducks, ospreys, frogs, and water lilies. Artist Laura Bifano represents the various scenes beautifully—from above, from below, and at various angles. I particularly love how she presents the reflections of the two canoeists (the old man and the young girl) in one of the early illustrations in the book, but my favourite pictures are of swallows whirling above the canoe at dusk and of the pair’s nighttime rides when the lake becomes indistinguishable from the sky. (Those images reminded me of the scene in the film in which the boy Beethoven runs out into a summer night and floats in a pond that reflects the stars—and becomes the universe.)

I hope Leslie Davidson and Laura Bifano will team up again. ( )

wonderful rhyme, lake discovery ( )