Tuesday, March 07, 2017

Swap

Swap. Steve Light. 2016. Candlewick. 40 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: An old ship. A sad friend.

Premise/plot: Two pirates (one adult, one child) find a way to fix their old ship by bartering. It starts with a red button that falls off of a shirt. That button is swapped for two tea cups. Those tea cups are swapped for three coils of rope. The swaps get progressively more complicated. Readers may or may not catch on immediately to what is going on. (Part of each trade is being held back to repair their ship. Part of each trade is being used to keep on swapping.)

My thoughts: I liked this one. I did. So much is communicated through the illustrations, I think. And the illustrations are simple and complex all at the same time. They are very detailed even if most of them are just black and white with a few splashes of color. I think there is enough going on to keep you rereading this one. Yet it's not overwhelmingly busy.

Text: 3 out of 5
Illustrations: 4 out of 5
Total: 7 out of 10

© 2017 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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