By Edward Ardizzone
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I still have the letter that I wrote to my parents when I decided to run away from home as a small girl. I told them that I would be in the back yard but that I would deign to come home for Christmas and birthdays. Little Tim, however, is much more adventurous than I. He runs away to sea and doesn't return home until forced by a shipwreck.
Little Tim lives near the sea and is good friends with both the old boatman and Captain McFee. These distinguished gentlemen spin such exciting yarns about their maritime experiences that Tim is determined to become a sailor. He would like to start right now, thank you, but his parents tell him he is much too young. His big break comes sooner than he thought when he is invited to visit a steamer with his friend the boatman, and is accidentally on-purpose left behind.
The sailor's life is harder than Tim expected, especially when he is discovered to be a stowaway. After a difficult day of swabbing the deck, Tim settles into life aboard ship and becomes a favorite with the crew, especially the cook, who is a family man. The idyllic life at sea is cut abruptly short by a storm and a shipwreck. Tim is inadvertantly left on board when the others abandon ship; the brave sea captain is the only one left to comfort him, as he refuses to leave his ship, and the two prepare to visit Davey Jones's locker before they are saved in a daring rescue.
This story is one of several adventures about Tim, written in the 1940's and 50's. Edward Ardizzone's beautiful watercolor paintings combine with his pen and ink drawings to charmingly illustrate this tale. Young children love stories about other little people who do useful and "grown-up" things.
