TUGBOATS

Children will be delighted by the full-color photographs of many different tugboats--""the best-known and best-loved workboats of the water""--in this work from Maass (When Winter Comes, 1993, etc.). It's an eye-opening introduction to these naval workhorses with spreads of tugs hauling cargo, pushing barges, and breaking ice. Numerous shots of crews working on deck, tending the engine, and cooking dinner add a human dimension, albeit an exclusively male one. Still, Maass's explanation of such terms as headline, wheelhouse, and docking pilot should make preschoolers feel as salty as Popeye, and eager to hoist anchor.