Little Surprises

Sometimes you find lovely surprises under a pile of papers. Several months ago a friend gave me three paperbacks written by someone she knew and asked me if I could review them. Of course I took them with every intention of reading and reviewing them right away. But things got in the way and they got buried on my desk. Well, I found them today and just had to sit right down and finally read them. The books are part of a series of nautical stories inspired by wooden boats in the Great Lakes region. Each book tells the story of one of the wooden boats.

Pegasus is a boat with painted wings. More than anything, Pegasus wants to fly like a bird. Then one day a storm blows through and Pegasus is freed from the dock. But instead of being excited about being alone in the water, Pegasus is lost and afraid. Finally, he makes friends with some herons who made a loud racket in the water drawing his owners to them. They tied a rope to him and pulled him back to the dock. Pegasus realized how lucky he was to have his friends and owners.

Larry is a small boat. His owners love the smooth ride he gives, but sometimes he wishes he were a faster, shinier, sportier, boat. One day while on the river, Larry hears the distress call from one of those sportier boats. His engine failed and he was floating aimlessly. To make matters worse, a huge barge was coming downriver and the sports boat was in the way. Larry hurried over to help. His owners threw a rope to the owner of the sporty boat and towed him safely into the marina.

Chris is an old wooden boat who finds himself in a boat shop talking to a mouse who is the captain of the shop and the other boats left there for repair. When a man in overalls comes to repair Chris, Captain Cuddy (the mouse) stays with him and keeps him calm. Chris learns that the man in the overalls only wanted him for small jobs. He thought Chris was a junker, not worth fixing. Finally, someone came to the dock who wanted to buy Chris and restore him to his original beauty. It turns out that someone was Donny, one of the children whose father owned Chris originally. Chris was so happy to be back home with someone who loved him.