Lily Leads the Way by Margi Preus illustrated by Matt Myers

Published by Candlewick

Summary:  Lily is a little sailboat who is excited to be greeting a visiting fleet of tall ships.  To get to the harbor, she needs the lift bridge to raise itself and let her through.  She calls out to the bridge, but bigger, louder ships get ahead of her.  She finally makes it through and meets up with the tall ships: a sloop, a schooner, a brig, and a barque.  But none of them has any way to alert the bridge that it needs to let them through again, and it’s up to Lily to find a solution to their dilemma.  Includes an author’s note about lift bridges and her personal experience with sailboats and bridges.  32 pages; ages 3-7.

Pros:  Budding engineers will enjoy seeing all the different types of bridges and ships, and all kinds of kids will appreciate that Lily is the heroine of the story, despite her small size.

Cons:  Some of those big ships were kind of obnoxious.

June 3, 2022 at 04:15PM Janet Dawson