The Goodbye Boat is a picture book that tries to explore the delicate subject matter of death of a loved one in a soothing style that is more understandable to young children. The author uses impressive artwork that abounds with allegory and minimal text to explain each instance. It starts with a picture of a grey-haired woman, a boy, a girl, a younger man and woman, and a dog having fun on the beach. As the skies get dark, they see a boat approaching from a distance that eventually carries the old woman away. The kids are pictured lonely at twilight and weeping later in bed. However, they are portrayed playing on the beach the following morning as the boat sails away.
This book is not appropriate for young children. The use of a few words only to explain the scenes and drastic change of scenes makes it difficult for kids reading on their own to understand its real meaning. Additionally, the topic of loss of a loved is not clearly expressed in this book. The reader has to work hard to unearth the real meaning of the images, the words, and different graphics. This book is appropriate to children who have adults to read it together with.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Interpreting the real meaning of this book is also extremely difficult for a young child. It is full of symbols that drastically change in the flip of a just a single page; therefore, making it difficult for normal kids to understand. It is only appropriate to kids with a very high mental capacity who can identify the tiny details in the pictures and understand their meaning.
This book is also inclined towards sea traveling. It tries to demonstrate whenever a boat sails away, it will eventually land in a better shore than the previous. It does not show where the old woman went assuming that the reader will interpret a better land. However, this is not always the case. The boat might capsize before reaching its destination or even land on a worse shore.
It tries to explain to the society that death might be sorrow to the beloved ones; however, it could be possible that the diseased went to a better place than the earth. Hence, there is no need for the relatives to weep or fear death.
I would not recommend this book to children dealing with death. It is challenging to understand. Even if the child was able to interpret its meaning, the issue of loss and how to cope with it is not well explained. I can only recommend this book if the child has an adult to read it with.
