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A review by katebrarian
The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles by Michelle Cuevas, Erin E. Stead
4.0
Beautiful beautiful illustrations. I wanted to fall into this book and live in the pages. Stead also illustrated A Sick Day for Amos McGee which is also a book with lovely illustrations! I love the particular turns of phrase in the writing as well - "...the waves tipped their white postman hats to the Uncorker...", "...he would journey until his compass because rusty and he felt loneliness as sharp as fish scales," "...for a letter can hold the treasure of a clam-hugged pearl." Quite beautiful in a children's book.
I am really curious about the origins of the Uncorker. This book doesn't seem magically-real enough for him to actually be a manifestation of the desire for connection or whatever (though that's perfectly whimsical (also I just read another reviewer who wanted to call this whimsical-realism which I'm obviously down with))...but the more I think of it, the more I like that interpretation better than my other one which is that the Uncorker is the product of an unconventional and possibly abusive household. His parent/guardian was mentally ill or otherwise detached from reality and raised him lonely in this house on a hill with the sole purpose of Uncorking, didn't allow him to make friends or see anyone outside of the message in a bottle visits and told him that none of them would want to be his friend anyway because he was smelly, left him emotionally stunted and unable to really connect with people and then died, leaving him to just continue on without companionship outside of a cat and a cow and without a name. Hopefully the end of this book represents the small seaside town attempting to bring the Uncorker into their community now that his controlling guardian has died.
I am really curious about the origins of the Uncorker. This book doesn't seem magically-real enough for him to actually be a manifestation of the desire for connection or whatever (though that's perfectly whimsical (also I just read another reviewer who wanted to call this whimsical-realism which I'm obviously down with))...but the more I think of it, the more I like that interpretation better than my other one which is that the Uncorker is the product of an unconventional and possibly abusive household. His parent/guardian was mentally ill or otherwise detached from reality and raised him lonely in this house on a hill with the sole purpose of Uncorking, didn't allow him to make friends or see anyone outside of the message in a bottle visits and told him that none of them would want to be his friend anyway because he was smelly, left him emotionally stunted and unable to really connect with people and then died, leaving him to just continue on without companionship outside of a cat and a cow and without a name. Hopefully the end of this book represents the small seaside town attempting to bring the Uncorker into their community now that his controlling guardian has died.