TUGBOATS NEVER SLEEP

Souped up with color photos and focusing, for young-reader involvement, on a boy who lives near Boston Harbor, this not only tells you less than Plowden's Tugboat (1976) but also lacks the genuine impact of the earlier book's strong black-end-white photos and intrinsically interesting text. Here we have the boy, Jason, musing at night about the tugs, viewing their blurred lights from his window, and rushing next morning (why show all these streets?) to board the Cabot. Once on board he greets the crew, then concentrates on Jimmy--who shows Jason how to make a clove hitch, tells how he ""speaks rope"" with non-English speaking deckhands, end delights him with a promise that he can tie up the tug next morning. There's a shot of an old sailing ship and others of the harbor today and the tug heading out to fetch a ship--but you never get to know the Cabot for all the attention to Jason; conversely, he never transcends his role as a ""Let's Visit"" device for viewing the tug.