Waiting for High Tide

by Nikki McClure

Overview

For one young boy, it's a perfect summer day to spend at the beach with his family. He scours the high tide line for treasures, listens to the swizzling sound of barnacles, and practices walking the plank. But mostly he waits for high tide. Then he'll be able to swim and dive off the log raft his family is building. While he waits, sea birds and other creatures mirror the family's behaviors: building and hunting, wading and eating. At long last the tide arrives, and human and animal alike savor the water. Another beautiful ode to life lived in harmony with nature, and by the labor of one's own hands, from an artist of great warmth and clarity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781613129289
Publisher:	ABRAMS Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	05/23/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	48
File size:	13 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 7 Years

About the Author

Nikki McClure is the author and illustrator of Collect Raindrops; In; Mama, Is It Summer Yet?; To Market, To Market; Apple; and How to Be a Cat. She is also the illustrator of All in a Day by Cynthia Rylant and May the Stars Drip Down by Jeremy Chatelain. McClure lives in Olympia, Washington. www.nikkimcclure.com.

Editorial Reviews

**STARRED REVIEW**
"Astounding full-bleed, cut-paper illustrations (in black and white with isolated use of pink and blue) appear opposite the narrative—muted, matte, and miraculous. Clumped kelp, rippling water, clambering crabs, banks of barnacles, round cheeks, the curvature, of feathers and barbed beaks, bark on logs—all achieve extraordinary, evocative clarity through lacy cutouts within the context of gratifying, gorgeous compositions. The tide has brought an extraordinary book to our shores."

Kirkus

"Stunning paper-cut and fountain ink illustrations bring readers to the Salish Sea for a day of raft building and waiting for high tide."

School Library Connection

**STARRED REVIEW**

"McClure’s distinctive artwork—black paper cut with an X-ACTO knife and fountain pen—has never been richer. The simple palette of black, white, and blue, accented with the occasional pink (the sunglasses, the heron’s long legs, the gulls’ feet), is stunning. Children will love searching for the marine animals and detritus. Delicately penned endpapers illustrate the steps in raft-building, and some shore creatures. A celebration of the natural beauty of a summer’s day on the Olympic Coast."

Booklist

**STARRED REVIEW**
“Lavish with words and images in a story that is a worthy heir to Robert McCloskey’s work… The sense of place is so rich that it seems possible to smell the air and hear the gulls.”

Publisher's Weekly

"… McClure’s cut-paper images are at once sweeping in their scale and extraordinary in their detail... A splendid seaside tour worth poring over. For general picture book collections as well as curriculum units on natural science."

School Library Journal

**STARRED REVIEW**

"McClure’s distinctive artwork—black paper cut with an X-ACTO knife and fountain pen—has never been richer. The simple palette of black, white, and blue, accented with the occasional pink (the sunglasses, the heron’s long legs, the gulls’ feet), is stunning. Children will love searching for the marine animals and detritus. Delicately penned endpapers illustrate the steps in raft-building, and some shore creatures. A celebration of the natural beauty of a summer’s day on the Olympic Coast."

Booklist

★ 2016-02-02
A child waits for the tide to rise, working alongside Mama and Papa to construct a log raft and observing coastal creatures the whole long, hot while. Readers turn over shells, clams, gulls, logs, mud, herons, crabs, rocks, salt, and seaweed as the child encounters the ever changing tidal world. The child's narration (flowing, lengthy, and studded with stunningly specific marine-life facts and observations) allows readers to experience the elongated day of waiting and elated discovery. The child's enthusiasm gives up pearls: "the best part about barnacles is the noise they make. Miles and miles of tiny plates shifting about make a crackly, squizzling sound. Maybe they tell stories of all they saw with that one eye as they swam about in the world?" Astounding full-bleed, cut-paper illustrations (in black and white with isolated use of pink and blue) appear opposite the narrative—muted, matte, and miraculous. Clumped kelp, rippling water, clambering crabs, banks of barnacles, round cheeks, the curvature, of feathers and barbed beaks, bark on logs—all achieve extraordinary, evocative clarity through lacy cutouts within the context of gratifying, gorgeous compositions. The tide has brought an extraordinary book to our shores. (Picture book. 4-10)

Kirkus Reviews