Bob Bodden and the Good Ship Rover

by Elizabeth Coatsworth

Bob Bodden sets sail as cabin boy on the Rover, a ship so long that it takes him nearly three voyages around the world to deliver a message from the captain to the second mate. Illustrated by Ted Schroeder.

48 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 1968

About the author

Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth was best known as the author of Away Goes Sally, The Cat Who Went to Heaven, which won the 1931 Newbery Medal, and the four Incredible Tales, but in fact she wrote more than 90 books for children. She was extremely interested in the world around her, particularly the people of Maine, as well as the houses and the surrounding land. She also loved the history and myths of her favorite places, those near her home and those encountered on her countless travels.

Coatsworth graduated from Vassar College in 1915 and received a Master of Arts from Columbia University in 1916. In 1929, she married writer Henry Beston, with whom she had two children. When she was in her thirties, her first books of adult poetry were published. For over fifty years, she continued to write and publish poetry in collections and to weave poems between the chapters of her books of fiction.

Reviews

[Katie Bathke · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book would be categorized as a tall tale under traditional literature. Would be considered a tall tale because the character is based on a real or imagined character and the story is so exaggerated. Tall tales are stories that are retold over and over that the story eventually gets so exaggerated. This book has very little pictures it is mostly words. There will be a picture on maybe every two pages. There is a lot of negative space around the pictures. The colors of the pictures are dull and look as if they are drawn in by pencil. The cover pages are interesting because they have a map that shows where the Rover all traveled.

[Lindsey Johnson]

I like how the book has a map of what the travels of the rover traveled on. The pictures are very small with barley any color to them. The pictures would either be on the top or the bottom of the words. Once in awhile you would get a page where the picture is the whole page. This books background is white on every page even the pages where the picture took up the whole page. Even there is not much color to this book I still think children would enjoy the book. This book is longer so I don’t think they would be interested in hearing it read to them all at once. This would be a good activity to do with your students and have them make their own map.