Hurray for Captain Jane!

by Sam Reavin

Jane discovers a ship and an adventure in her bathtub.

Hardcover

First published October 1, 1971

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jane comes home from a party with some party favors and plays with them in the bathtub as she imagines she's a ship's captain. So it's basically a dream sequence, and I hate dream sequences.

The art has some innocent child nudity that would probably get this 1971 book removed from a Florida school library . . . if it were popular enough today to still be in any library's collection, which I doubt.

[Adele · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't remember this one as well as some of the others from my childhood. I think the biggest draw for me in this book was the manifestation of the child's imagination in the pictures. The bar of soap ice berg is the next thing to magical. I can remember feeling real tension when Jane notices the mysterious brass handle and gives it a turn ending the fantasy. Of course Jane being the captain of an ocean liner in 1971 is a big plus, though for some reason child me was even more taken with Kate, Seawoman First Class. She's the one I identified with and wanted to be.

PART OF:
Another batch of childhood memories I now own physical copies of again thanks to my amazing husband. See the complete list of books I have remembered so far here

[Sam Waters · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was the book of my childhood. It was written by my great-uncle, a few years before I was born, so I always had a copy around. But it was also a favorite - a brave heroine, imaginative adventures, it was just a fun book for a kid.

[emily]

que menina egoista

[Heather Burdette Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was reminded of my favorite childhood book today while shopping for my niece who is on the way!

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a favorite book of mine when I was a boy. I must have read it a hundred times.

After my son was born, I started collecting my favorite books from my childhood. Most of the books were pretty easy to find as either my mother still had them or they were well known books. This one was a bit harder for me to recover, as I only remembered bits of the story, and did not know the name of the book or the author. I did have a pretty clear image in my mind though of the front cover and the last picture in the book.

When I finally found the book, I thought it was OK. Not great though. I wasn't sure why I was so drawn to it as a boy. My son though, seems to like it very much. I've now read it to him at least a dozen times. There's something about this book that kids seem to like a lot.

Nathan Horwitz