Little Rat sets Sail by Monika Bang-Campbell illustrated by Molly Bang

Little Rat's parents sign her up for sailing lessons but Little Rat is utterly terrified of falling in the water. She is wearing a life jacket but it does not give her courage:

"Little Rat felt shy and nervous.
She looked different from everybody else.
Her life jacket was gray, with a big red stripe across it and laces up the sides.
Everybody else had on neat yellow-and-orange zip-up life jackets.
Everybody else was cool.
Little Rat felt like a dork.
She wanted to go home."

Luckily for Little Rat, the instructor, Buzzy Bear, is patient, intiutive, kind and a terrific teacher and so over the coming weeks of summer Little Rat tries new things, there are no terrible disasters, and Little Rat surprises herself by learning to sail and discovering she actually likes it!

Here are some of the important words for new sailors: mooring, heeling, capsize, centerboard, tiller, mainsail, cockpit, jib. There is also an excellent labelled diagram included.

Little Rat is a brave little sailor with her own shy appeal and Bang’s charming illustrations are impossible to resist. Kirkus

It is such a shame that I am so late coming to this book because it is out of print and because I missed so many opportunities to put this gem of a book into the hands of keen readers in my former school library. I am sure this would have been a popular book so many of the children at my school were sailors or lived in families with boats. Yes we did have a copy of Little Rat sets Sail, and no you can't read every book, BUT I do wish I had taken the time to read Little Rat sets Sail and the sequels. With just 45 pages, and five chapters this is a PERFECT book for a keen sailor, for a reader who is curious about sailing, and for a newly independent reader. I am happy to see this book is still available in my old school library but sadly this other very special book, illustrated by Molly Bang, has been disposed:

Molly Bang is the mother of Monika Bang-Campbell and I was not surprised to discover Monika is a keen sailor. The sailing vocabulary and experience are so accurately explained in this story.

Here are the other two books about Little Rat:

If you are looking for a couple of other books to share with your young sailor or keen boating person.
You might find these in a well stocked library:

And for an older student you could look for Fort Island from the Aussie Bites series: