The Shore Beyond

Can-do girls. Inquisitive girls. Despite their long braids and flowing skirts. Clara and her friend Miriam need to know what happens on the other side of the lake where Clara's father rows every morning. And what goes on down river. And what happens beyond the ocean's breakers. And, finally, how to reach the golden point where gleaming ocean and sun-brushed sky meet. Restless to discover what lies just out-of-reach, Clara finally gets to co-pilot her father's ferry boat to the distant shore. Too hard work and too boring a job, she pronounces when she realizes her first wish. Undeterred by choppy waters and miles of swirling river, Clara is ready for more adventure, drawn by greater unknowns. Even when Miriam finds a new home--and satisfaction--Clara wants to go on, to a place that will make my spirit dance. She turns to an old sailor who has been everywhere. He doesn't teach her how to row, as her father did, or how to make her own boat, as Miriam did. But he tells her what to watch for and how to travel. Clara's urgent longing finds a match in the sailor's mysterious, but knowing, intrigue. Soft paintings throughout are as full of wonder as the text. They capture the pastoral and the world of watery edges, the secure and the vastly unknown beyond.