While on a seaside stroll with her grandmother, Rosie learns how things in her present-day environment compare with the olden days of Gran's time. Beginning each passage with the refrain, ``When I was little like you,'' Gran describes steam engines that ``puffed round the point'' and the ice cream that was peddled by a man on a bicycle. Fish was sold right from the dock while swimmers played catch-as-catch-can with the breakers. The simple then-and-now contrasts are ideal for sharing, inviting young listeners to ask questions of their own elders. One constant is the old lighthouse, which looks just the same on fine summer evenings past and present. Walsh provides a finale as sweet as the old-fashioned four-for-a-penny candy in glass jars, when Rosie asks Gran if she liked the world better back then. Gran replies, ``The world is more fun by far now it has you in it!'' Fuzzy-edged blocks of color form the shapes of uncluttered seascapes and cherubic, rosy-cheeked characters. Puffs of cottony clouds and ice cream, rounded hills, and gently pitched hat brims add to the amiable, pastoral feel of this saunter through summer memories. (Picture book. 2-4)
