HURRAH, WE'RE OUTWARD BOUND

What Peter Spier did for 18th-century New Castle, Delaware, in To Market! To Market! (1967, 1132, J-390), he does here for early 19th-century Honfleur, France, again producing an attractive album with no ascertainable audience except adult antiquarians. Accompanying the voyage of La Jeune Francaise from the wharfs of Honfleur to New York and back via England is an assortment of rhymes and sea chanteys (not necessarily Mother Goose). Children will have some difficulty determining where one ends and the next begins, and their connection to the ship's progress is more ingenious than integral: a running commentary is required (besides the rhymes) to explain what's happening and where, in short, the application of disparate rhymes, meant to be savored separately ("Sunday sail, never fail, Friday sail, ill luck and gale"; "She sells sea shells on the seashore. . .") to a continuous picture story doesn't work, and the minute detail and breathtaking vistas of the illustrations (plus the effort of keeping up) swamp the simple verses.