Sailing Books for Children

[Bull City]

I am the hopelessly smitten grandfather of five, ages 2 to 9, three of whom have been sailing with me. I'm frequently on the look out for children's books that promote the love of sailing. I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Thanks.

 

[Ishmael]

 

[Autonomous]

Scuppers The Sailor Dog

 

[Trevor B]

Little Rat Sets Sail, and a second for Swallows and Amazons.

 

[Bull City]

I am on board for Arthur Ransome for children who are readers. How about younger ones?

 

[Bull City]

Little Rat Sets Sail, and a second for Swallows and Amazons.

Little Rat looks like a winner. I've ordered a copy. Thanks.

 

[valis]

+1 for Scuppers the Sailor Dog!  My grandson loved this one when he was three or so (we read it to him), and now whenever we find or build a driftwood shack on the beach we all call it the "Sailor Dog house".  

Another read-aloud one is "The Maggie B".  Our daughter liked it so much when she was little that decades later we named our little psuedo-tug "Maggie E".

"Where the Wild Things Are" has a little bit of sailing in it.

None of these are about sailing, exactly, but have boats as an element.

 

[valcour]

Little Rat is great. There's also one for horseback riding. 

There are a couple of books about a dog named Salty, and his owner who is building a wooden boat. 

Sarah's Boat is another, but maybe for older kids. 

One Morning in Maine is a good one with boats in it, but not sailing. 

 

[jewingiv]

Also for Scuppers the Sailor Dog and One Morning in Maine. Another very good one is Amos and Boris.

Slightly nautical and perennially good are The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Grey Bridge (a personal favorite), The Little Island, and Circus Ship.

And The Wind in the Willows, though not sailing per se, is a wonderful book for older kids.  “There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing around in boats. Simply messing.”  

Those are words I live by.

 

[Pipe Dream]

https://www.bookdepository.com/My-Little-Night-light-Claire-Freedman/9781848570016

This is a nice book. The kids can press the light and it glows for for a little bit.

 

[toddster]

When I was nine, I think I was plowing through Walt Morley books.  Not sailing, maybe, but there were boats in many of them.  Maybe too dated these days? They were new back then.  

There was another book - maybe more for early teens - about a British boy who had to take over the family fishing smack.  Made a big impression, but I’ve never been able to google it up.  Sound familiar to anybody?  IIRC, skills learned sailing the smack later made him a big hero, in The War, as per most boys books in those days.  

Another neat source of inspiration for maybe 10 y/o and up is/was the Sea Scout Manual.  I had my great-uncles 1930’s edition.  At first, there are the diagrams of ship’s rigging and knots to tie.  Later, the text becomes more interesting.  No idea what the current edition looks like.  Actually I still have quite a few of my uncles books - man, those 1930’s kids books would all be considered shockingly racist today.   But interesting to see what was cool to kids back then.  

 

[slug zitski]

Flipper is a kids best friend around the water

 

[slug zitski]

The Encyclopedia for kids is the Ocean Almanac.

everything they need to know  

 

[kevswack]

Lying Awake

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/lying-awake-helen-furbush/1006258194/2674181680818?st=PLA&sid=BNB_DRS_New+Marketplace+Shopping+Books_00000000&2sid=Google_&sourceId=PLGoP164951&gclid=Cj0KCQjwkKPVBRDtARIsAA2CG6GQI6bMMk5uoKooH1yJ2p6RwivhHGe6LK8navoAKhB77CvK_ykpjJwaAvXHEALw_wcB

 

[dylan winter]

As a Brit I am supposed to love Ransome

I  could never get on with him

all that "let us pretend" an old woman is  a  witch bollix or an old man is a pirate tosh

I tried his adult literature too

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racundra's_First_Cruise

in Racundra he devoted a lot of  the book bad  mouthing the working class

I fear that his prose has not survived well

D

 

[Simon75]

for the older kid:

Frederick Marryat: Peter Simple

 

[Pipe Dream]

There was another book - maybe more for early teens - about a British boy who had to take over the family fishing smack.  Made a big impression, but I’ve never been able to google it up.  Sound familiar to anybody?

I have a book called Sea Fever by K. M. Peyton that matches that description.

 

[nebe]

Amos and Boris.  its about a mouse that dreams of sailing the world, builds a little boat called the rodent and sets off. He falls over board and is rescued by a whale named boris who was off to get laid somewhere and he calls off is booty call to return amos to his homeland.  Its a beautiful story. I read it to my son about 400 times when he was age 2 -6

 

[QBF]

Scuppers, the Sailor Dog is also available as an audiobook