28 July 2015 FLOAT by Daniel Miyares, Simon & Schuster, June 2015, 48p., ISBN: 978-1-4814-1524-8

“Sailing paper boats across the lake until they wilt and fold and sink”

-- Unknown

On the front endpapers of FLOAT, there’s a set of pictorial instructions for folding a paper boat like the one in this story. On the back endpapers, there’s a similar set of instructions for folding a paper airplane like the one that appears at the conclusion of this amazing wordless tale.

FLOAT begins with a newspaper. A pair of grownup hands and a pair of small hands transform a sheet of that newspaper into a paper boat. A young boy wearing a bright yellow slicker and rain hat takes the boat out into an approaching downpour. After the storm passes and as rainwater rushes down the streets, he and the boat adventure through the neighborhood. Eventually, a storm drain swallows the boat and the momentarily distraught boy retrieves what is now a sodden sheet of newsprint and goes home. But, after drying off, warming up, and downing a steaming cup of cocoa, the boy and his beloved sheet of newspaper, now folded into a paper airplane, head out into the warmth of a sunny afternoon.

There is a timeless universality to FLOAT. The depictions of weather and the reflections in the puddles are magical. The wordless format works well for this story of a boy in his own world, sailing a silent vessel down the street. Despite the quiet, there is lots of exciting action here as the boy and the boat traverse the town.

Focusing on the paper-folding aspect of the book, I would pair FLOAT with the 1985 classic Molly Bang tale THE PAPER CRANE. I would also turn kids onto folded paper fortune tellers (which, in the 1960s, we called cootie catchers), and some basic books on origami.

Richie Partington, MLIS

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