The Red Boat was published by Child’s Play in 2012. It was written and illustrated by Hannah Cumming.
Posy’s family has moved into a new house and she’s not comfortable. The neighbors look scary, her room has spooky shadows at night and she’s worried about not making friends at school. She and her dog play in a boat that she finds in her yard and they travel to all sort of places (the moon, under the sea and a large plain). The characters/animals that she meets relate well to her situations in the real world. By the end, she has settled into her new surroundings.
The Red Boat’s best feature is probably the cute characters that the author has created. A lot of the characters that she has created in this book remind me of stuff drawn by the Swedish illustrator, Mattias Adolfsson. The illustrations are done with watercolors and colored pencils (I believe). I like how the house on the first page of the story is kind of warped... I’d prefer illustration that are not technically perfect as it gives a bit more flavor to my eyes.
The story might confuse young kids since the transition for the fantasy world (Posy in strange lands) and the real world are quite abrupt... we don’t really see Posy and the dog get into the boat a few nights. Why does the boat take her to these strange places? Considering the title of the big is “The Red Boat”, very little is explained about this mysterious wooden thing that floats on water. And don't her parents notice their child sneaking out in the middle of the night?
The inside of the front dust jacket promotes this book as one with “a positive underlying message about confidence and friendship”.
