Illustrated by Mary Beth OwensFor: Kids
Pub: 2008
Ratiing: 4/5
Finished: Aug. 11, 2008
signed by both author and illustrator
I found this on one of my summer visits to Port in a Storm bookstore in Somesville, Maine. A Maine setting with a literacy theme, written and illustrated by two well-known-at-least-by-me Mainers was my hands-down picture book choice for this trip.
Mr. Pottle lives in Shiretown, Maine (although I think shire town means county seat,....whenever I think of Shiretown I think of Houlton, Maine, which is nicknamed Shiretown). He oversees the dump. He collects and repairs perfectly good items, especially books. He can't believe that people would throw them away. He repairs them, cleans them, and even uses potpourri to de-smell them. He stores them on rickety bookshelves, giving them, lending them, sharing them with anyone who wants to read them, especially the children of the town. When his shelves are full he fills an old shopping cart and begins to give them away all over town, nursing homes, homeless people, anywhere they will be read, with the only rule being they won't be discarded. When Mr. Pottle breaks his ankle and becomes bedridden, the children bring him all sorts of books to read, and he admits that he can't read. So, of course, the kids begin to read to him. The last illustration shows a kid sharing a book entitled "C is for Cat", with alphabet cards scattered across the tabletop, signifying that Mr. Pottle is now learning to read.
Heart-tugging theme. Lovely prose. Gorgeous illustrations. I loved that you could recognize many of the books from the hazily recreated covers, because Owens didn't include the book titles. The bordered page that depticts the kids riding their bikes all over town looking for Mr. Pottle is especially cool. The dump illustrations remind me of a brighter, watercolory CATS set. The whole book describes in words and pictures small-town Maine life as I've known it. Delightful.
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