"A little boy had a toy boat.  He made it from a can, a cork, a yellow pencil, and some white cloth.  The boy loved the boat, and they were never apart."  From that simple beginning grows the most beautiful picture book I've encountered all year.

Toy Boat is *perfect*.  Every single word counts and is exactly the right word.  The narrative and the emotion are delicately balanced.  Illustrator Loren Long, one of the best of our time, crafts so much life into each spread, Toy Boat is destined to become a classic.  Yes, teachers and home-schooling parents can use it as a springboard for lessons on physics, transportation, weather, and kindness.  But there is so much *heart* to this story, children will ask to hear it over and over again, and the word "timeless" will be in every description of this gem.

It is, perhaps, the only book that will get my nephew Noah to stop asking to cook green eggs and ham, and ask for a can, a cork, a yellow pencil, and some white cloth to create his own toy boat instead.