How to Catch a Fish - John Frank

POETRY
Illustrator: Peter Sylvada
2007
Ages 4-8
2/25 B&N
Rating: 4
Endpapers: sage blue

Flowing rhyming poetry tells the story of different ways that people fish in many places around the world - Tobago; Columbia River, Washington; Gap of Dunloe, Irlenad; Baffin Island; Nagara River, Japan; Montauk Point, New York; Okavango River, Namibia; New Caledonia; Ishi Pishi Falls, California; Fraser Canyon, British Columbia; Chattahoochee National Forest, Georgia; Kona, Hawaii; and northwest Florida. It ends:

We slack our reels to free some line,
and as I mull which rig to tie,
a knowing wink escapes his eye;
I made my choice of hook and weight,
we fasten them, we set our bait,
then raise our rods, set loose our lines
above the ocean, way up high,
the two of us, my dad and I...
And that is how to catch a fish.

Ice Fishing, Baffin Island, Nunavut:

We chop a hole in the Arctic ice,
and crouched in layers of skins and fur
to shun the frigid weather - b-rrr-rr-
we bait our hooks and lower our lines
and jig them, up and down, to stir
the fish below - but if they're near,
we'll sometime use a well-aimed spear.

Fishwheel, Fraser Canyon, British Columbia:

Propelled by currents swift and strong,
our fishwheel rotates round and round,
its soft metallic hollow sound
as rhythmic as a beaten drum,
three giant baskets scooping up
the sockeye, steelhead, coho, chum
and dropping them inside a pen ---
then circling back for more again.

Illustrations: hazy oil paintings with the remainder of the page a block of white from top to bottom containing the poem.