Kate's Castle

Frances Emery is an editor and writer living in Nepean, Ontario.

In a variation on “the house that Jack built,” this small book tells
in rhyme the story of a sand castle that is built by a little girl at
the seaside. Though the book doesn’t quite work for me, it was well
received by the 4-year-old contingent. Tyrrell’s illustrations are
soft and pleasing, many of them with quite a magical quality; but some
seem to have been based on photographs, and have an odd perspective. The
rhyme itself is erratic; it doesn’t follow the exact “house that
Jack built” pattern, but deviates somewhat jarringly at times.

Nevertheless, there is an imaginative charm about the imagery,
especially the marvelous castle that any child would love to be able to
construct with pail and shovel. The use of the various sea creatures in
pictures and text is lovely, though I wonder why the starfish is “hard
to please” (other than that it rhymes with “flowery anemones”).
Some of the language rolls nicely off the tongue (“tower of treasurely
finds”), but some of the rhymes don’t work (“finds” with
“spines”): you either have a rhyme or you don’t—there is no
middle ground.

I would probably take this book out of the library, but I don’t think
I’d plunk down the purchase price for it.