The Specific Ocean

May 25, 2015
With depth and subtlety, Maclear (Julia, Child) writes about a girl who is taken on vacation to a place she resents, warms to, and learns to love. She’s first seen curled up on her bed. “I do not want to go,” she says. “I want to stay in the city with my friends.” But though the water is freezing and the seashore is lonely, this new world begins to enchant her. “I used to call it the Specific Ocean until my brother corrected me,” she confesses. At last, she succumbs. “I want this ocean to be mine,” she says. “Mama has a snowy mountain in Japan, and Papa has the South Downs in England.... If I had my own ocean, I could let my thoughts swim free and dream of an underwater life.” Maurey’s (Francis, the Little Fox) pale gouache paintings shimmer with whites, pale blues, and greens; dreamy scenes of floating and swimming mirror the girl’s drifting thoughts and emotions. Maclear and Maurey capture with finesse the mysterious process by which a physical place finds its way into the heart. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Jackie Kaiser, Westwood Creative Artists.

June 1, 2015
A young girl must reluctantly leave the city and friends she loves in favor of summer in a cottage with her family on the Pacific coast. The young protagonist of this lyrical picture book doesn't want to leave her friends behind. However, the trip is not optional. Her negative reaction to the ocean upon arrival ("dull, droning, dreary water") is important as it highlights the drastic change her feelings undergo over the course of the story. After a couple of days of avoid-the-ocean tantrums, the protagonist, "slowly, grumping," accompanies her mother to the water. The pale color palette used throughout the story successfully evokes a watery, sun-bleached feel-a perfect complement for this beach story. The descriptive prose continues, chronicling the evolution of the protagonist's response to the ocean from avoidance to a desire to make that ocean her "Specific Ocean" to a reluctance to leave, ending with the realization that the ocean will always be inside her. Her final description of the ocean is rapturous: "Calm. Blue. Ruffled. Gray. Playful. Green. Mysterious. Black. Foggy. Silver. Roaring. White." Some of the protagonist's thoughts and concerns feel a bit adult, but the poetry of the text makes this easy to forgive. The slight didacticism of the oceanographic message is similarly easy to overlook. A lovely, quiet beach story. (Picture book. 5-9)

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August 1, 2015

K-Gr 3-A young girl doesn't want to leave her friends in the city for a summer vacation with her family at the ocean. But she goes, and after a few days of moping, she discovers the wonders of the sea and then only reluctantly departs at vacation's end. Together, she and her brother swim and watch the waves as they "shine, shimmer, gleam, glow. The ocean is so big that it makes every thought and worry I have shrink and scatter." The unnamed girl narrates her experience and changing moods in lyrical, sophisticated language. Initially she misunderstood the name to be the Specific rather than Pacific Ocean. But she realizes that the experience of being at the sea has changed her, and she's confident that she will carry this specific ocean with her: "Calm. Blue. Ruffled. Gray. Playful. Green. Mysterious," not unlike her feelings. Mixed-media illustrations use soft lines and a muted palette for an almost ethereal effect, successfully evoking the ocean and its wonders. VERDICT Though not for everyone, this is a handsome, evocative look at one child's formative experience.-Maria B. Salvadore, formerly at District of Columbia Public Library

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