The Little Red Steamer

With digitally colored pen and pencil art that’s reminiscent of linocut prints, Maland (We Light Up the Sky with Music!) captures the rhythmic flow of both water and daily life as a beloved steamer serves a cluster of seemingly tropical islands. The cheery red vessel and its crew—the Captain and his daughter Lian, both portrayed with brown skin—take children to school and grown-ups to work, making it possible for their neighbors “to ask and to learn, to build and to mend, to help and to heal.” When a terrible storm blows the craft into open waters in which waves loom like skyscrapers, the battered boat drifts far from home and into the harbor of a busy metropolis, where it seems destined for a junkyard. But locals come by and offer assistance just as the vessel and its crew once helped others—working “to build and mend, to ask and to learn, to help and to heal.” Lian and a new friend now take the helm, affirming that care and kindness ripple outward, creating community wherever they land. Background characters are shown with various skin tones. Ages 4–8. Agent: Alan Lynch, Alan Lynch Artists. (Feb.)