My Life with the Wave

Rating:
Summary: "My Life With the Wave" is extraordinarily imaginative
Review: I love books that begin with a fanciful, "what-if" premise. In this case, what if a sliver of the sea -- a wave -- followed a family home from the beach like a stray animal? The illustrations, humorous in a borderline-grotesque way, capture the muscular spirit of this fantasy. I need not convince my children to read this story again and again, and they need not waste time coaxing me. I love it because it permits every reader to imagine the delightfully surreal.

Rating:
Summary: What happens when a boy bring home a wave from the ocean?
Review: Kids are always bringing things home from the beach, but you have probably never seen a kid who brings home a stray wave. "My Life with the Wave" is based on the story by Octavio Paz, the Nobel Prize winning author from Mexico. At first the boy finds it is great fun to have a wave in the house; the sun comes to play with it and there are fish adorning the wave's hair. But waves are affected by the moon and the sun, and the boy discovers that the wave can get very moody at times. How do you get a wave to go back to the sea? This charming and imaginative tale has been translated and adapted for children by Catherine Cowan and illustrated by Mark Buehner, who has skillfully hidden a cat, a dog, a mouse, a whale and a sea horse in almost every picture (just to drive us even more crazy, I imagine). The best thing about this book is that no matter how much you kids are inspired, they will never, ever be able to bring home anything like a wave. At least, I certainly hope not.

Rating:
Summary: A Truly Wonderful Children's Book
Review: My Life With The Wave is, by far, my favorite children's book and just fascinates my 6-year-old daughter. The story, the writing, the illustrations are all wonderful. We've taken this book out of our local library many times. Now, we are buying our own copy, one for my daughter's teacher and one for a friend.