Sara the Librarian's Reviews > Hello Lighthouse

This is an exquisite picture book that tells a quiet, just slightly melancholy story of the life of a lighthouse keeper and his family. Its written and illustrated by the absurdly talented, Caldecott winning Sophie Blackall whose work you've very probably seen in books like the Ivy and Bean series and Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear (which won her the aforementioned Caldecott).

There's something a bit haunting about Blackall's paintings. Like you're seeing something from another time that's long since passed into memory. Her style has the feel of classic American folk art but with a bit more emotion. It also calls to mind the precise beauty of classic Japanese ink painting, especially in Blackall's depiction of the sea. One picture, of the lighthouse engulfed in a thick fog is positively breathtaking.

But unlike both those styles there's nothing wooden about the lighthouse keeper dancing through the gently curving living quarters of the lighthouse with his beautiful young wife or a scene where she keeps a long night vigil beside him when he's wracked with fever. Each picture is filled with warmth. There's a particularly beautiful drawing of the birth of the lighthouse keeper's child done from above, as though the reader is looking down through the roof of the lighthouse where the keeper walks around and around with his wife as she labors. There's so much life infused in a place usually equated with loneliness and even tragedy. It's lovely. Like the building itself is alive.

While the story is a simple one there is a sense of sadness about the progression of time and the encroachment of technology when lighthouse keeper gets word that his services are no longer needed since a new automated light will now guide sailors in the night. The book ends with the keeper and his young family gazing out at the lighthouse from under the light of a small house across the water, bidding it a loving farewell. It doesn't take much suspension of disbelief to imagine the lighthouse is doing the same.