On a gray, rainy day, a brown-skinned boy dressed in bright yellow rain gear heads outside to play with the boat his dad has folded for him out of newspaper. Once the rain stops he floats his boat on puddles, but it is suddenly carried away down the street on a swift current, and right into a storm sewer. The boy later finds his boat in a drainage ditch, but it’s all soaked and shapeless. Downcast, he returns home where his dad is waiting with a hug, dry clothes, and a mug of cocoa. And he sets out again, this time with a folded paper airplane. This completely wordless book is illustrated in grays, browns, and bright yellows, and the pictures themselves of a young boy at play recall the work of Ezra Jack Keats. (Ages 3–6)

A boy’s small paper boat—and his large imagination—fill the pages of this wordless picture book, a modern-day classic from the creator of Pardon Me! that includes endpaper instructions for building a boat of your own.

A little boy takes a boat made of newspaper out for a rainy-day adventure. The boy and his boat dance in the downpour and play in the puddles, but when the boy sends his boat floating down a gutter stream, it quickly gets away from him.

So of course the little boy goes on the hunt for his beloved boat—and when the rain lets up, he finds himself on a new adventure altogether.

This seemingly simply story from Daniel Miyares is enriched with incredible depth and texture that transcend words.