Yellow Kayak, great art plus some poetry is all beautiful

When I saw that Yellow Kayak was a book that could be described as poetry my inner Fred Savage voice went off. “This isn’t a kissing book, is it?” questioned a young Savage in The Princess Bride. I have that same guarded line of questioning about books too, except ours warns us about poetry and unicorns. Yellow Kayak is a children’s illustrated book that does have rhyming words, but I wouldn’t call it poetry-if only to hold onto our stance of not liking poetry.

However, even if the book were presented to me as a poetry book, its utterly gorgeous illustrations by Melissa Castrillon, complemented with its dreamy text by Nina Laden would ultimately win me over. The first thing one will notice about the art is the landscape and scenery. It starts out with a boy and his giraffe (as one does) taking a row boat off of their island home. Their home island itself looks like it was extracted from a Lumberjanes comic book, complete with giant pines; birds who appear larger than they should and soft colors that perfectly evoke the start to a curious morning.

The two meet all manner of creatures, there’s a jumping fish, seals on a rock, jellyfish, octopus, whales, sharks and more. It rains hard, the duo encounter a squall, the sea raises to terrifying heights yet the two keep their eyes on the horizon. These scenes are especially beautiful with pink Japanese-looking carp moving in tandem with the two as they enter the storm.

This is beautiful stuff. Each page is accompanied with eight words of text that’s spread out over four very short sentences. The final words on the second and fourth sentences rhyme. Again, my Fred Savage voice rears its head. However, I loved Brown Bear, Brown Bear and that’s not technically listed as a poetry book, that’s what I tell myself.

Yellow Kayak is a lovely book. Ages two through seven will really enjoy reading it and laughing along with the boy and his giraffe as they row around the sea. Those older kids will enjoy the art more than the text as they’ll be able to read it by then. However, an example for those kids could be to point out to them the pacing and rhyming of the book.

The text is sparse and simple, yet paired with the art is very powerful. This is quite surprising because despite its brevity, the text never repeats its key rhyming words. As I write this I can feel my inner Fred Savage coming to grips with the reality that I like Yellow Kayak, even if you might call it poetry. I’m still calling this a children’s illustrated book though, thankfully one that doesn’t have any unicorns.