Seabird

by Holling Clancy Holling

A 1949 Newbery Honor Book

The history of America at sea is presented through the travels of Seabird, a carved ivory gull.

Genres: Geography, Picture Books, Childrens, Historical Fiction, Fiction, School, Nature

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1948

About the author

Born in Jackson County, Michigan, in 1900, Holling Clancy Holling graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1923. He then worked in a taxidermy department of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and spent time working in anthropology under Dr. Ralph Linton.

During this period, he married Lucille Webster, and within a year of their marriage accepted a position as art instructor on the first University World Cruise, sponsored by New York University. For many years, Holling C. Holling dedicated much of his time and interest to making books for children. Much of the material he used was known to him first hand, and his wife, Lucille, worked with him on many of the illustrations.

Sometimes listed as Holling C. Holling

Reviews

[Phil J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful! Holling tells a multi-generational story about fatherhood, the wonders of the natural world, the joy of discovery, and the pride of hard work, all in 27 single-page chapters. Each chapter is told in lively, poetic prose and faces a gorgeous full-color illustration. The margins are filled with helpful diagrams that provide additional information about sailing and whaling. Wait... whaling?

Does this book work in 2017?

Yes, I say it does. Holling provides detailed descriptions of whaling. He voices no ecological concerns either for the whales or for the coal and oil-fueled ships. There are some outdated terms- "Eskimo" and "Oriental." All this is indicative of the 1940s (when this book was published) and I don't see anything harmful in it. If a student was reading this book, I would gently comment on these topics, but I think the benefits of the lessons on progress and striving for better are well worth it.

The only piece I wish had been handled a little differently is the omission of women. The characters in this book seem to conjure babies out of thin air, all the children are male, and when they have family gatherings, there are no women present! I wish Holling had been more complete in that regard.

[Cynda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nostalgic. Romantic. Historical.

Textual Review.
A story honoring the whaling industry and the strong brave men who worked on the whaling ships. We read along as a young boy grows up and becomes strong, knowledgeable, reminiscent, and finally fades away. As we follow his stories, we find out about a seafaring culture and how technology changes it.

Art Review.

The illustrations that border the text add background and depth to the stories within the text. They ground the stories.

The main illustrations, the full-page colored illustrations that accompany the one-page-length stories depict something of what is being told in the short story facing.

The art is detailed enough to show the life of a seafarer when on water and when on land.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a gift from one pf my grandparents, probably read to me. I loved the artwork of icebergs, whales and boats which captured my imagination.

[Heather Gorsett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this multi-generational story and the little tidbits about whaling were the icing on the cake!

[Timilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

All of these are excellent! This is no exception!

[Summer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another beautifully illustrated book by Holling C. Holling. I learned so much and loved how the story started in Greenland. We start with Seabird being carved from a walrus tusk by Ezra on a whaling ship and travel with Seabird through the early 1800s until the 1920s, showing the evolutions of ships on the sea all the way to ships in the air.

The boys had an extremely hard time and even ROARED at one point at the horror of having people hunt whales. They called the book "stupid" and "dumb" and wanted to stop the book right away. We discussed the evolution of using different oils for electricity. So, instead of giving up on the book we explored ways of looking at history and seeing where it might have gone wrong and also how things inevitably change and that some of the time, it is a very good thing. It was a great book to introduce ideas that were contrary to idyllic. They would say it was not as good as his other books, I disagree.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A four-generational story about how transportation changed. It begins with Ezra, a ships boy on one of the last whaling ships. He carves a seabird from a whale tusk and keeps it with him always. Ezra grows up to have his own shipping company, which expands to steam under his son. And so it continues to flying.

The story wasn't bad, definitely one of the better older Newbery books. I thought the illustrations were fantastic. They get 5-stars.

[Enola Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The children enjoyed it more than Paddle, and we all cried at the end. So beautiful. Very much looking forward to Minn next!

[Heather Tully · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read aloud during Gather as part of our 2022-2023 edu year & finished up in summer. Our fourth family read aloud of 2023. I pretty much always have a Holling book going.

[Jed Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly prized book from my youth with a wide-ranging story and incredible illustrations. Second only to Paddle-to-the-Sea in my esteem. I’m still haunted by the image of Nate diving after Seabird.

Fun Fact: His wife, Lucille Webster, was a major behind-the-scenes collaborator on most of the illustrations.

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Newbery Honor illustrated book on life on one boy's life and descendants on sailing boats. It goes into some depth on whaling. And then eventually switches to other types of ships as time and technology run on. Throughout there are plenty of illustrations. This is not one I remember reading before though we've had these and others by this author since our kids were small. They were memories from my spouse's childhood. But for me they showed up on my relatively new geography list, apparently that's a tag that some goodreader's thought it deserved. An easy read, but a lot more words and depth than I had thought it would have.

[Karol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This childrens' book looks at "ships" across 4 generations, from a whaling ship powered by sails, to a "ship" that flies. I liked the multi-generational and historical aspects of the book, but of course didn't enjoy the whaling part of it. The illustrations were just beautiful.

[Caroline Norris]

2024: second time around for me, first time for Pj!

[Ana on the Shelves]

Beautiful!

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

We're not liking this one as well as we did Paddle-to-the-Sea. Maybe I didn't do my homework well enough, but I didn't know the first part of the book was about a whaling ship. We're reading along and they kill a whale and start stripping the blubber off and boiling it down and it gets a little gruesome. My boys all looked a little green in the gills for a while.

I'll let you know how we like the rest once we finish it.

Okay, we finished it. We followed the change in ships from whaling to sailing a schooner to steam and liner and finally airplane. It was interesting but very short. If your kids express an interest you could go much more indepth.

We liked the book better as we went along, but it still didn't captivate us like Paddle-to-the Sea did. I think we will probably read it again when the younger ones are a little older, but I'm still not positive.

[Shella · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up. This book is formatted just like the Minn book. A fictional story told in one page installments. The outer parts of the page have nonfiction information and drawings, diagrams etc. The layout is the strength of the books. The story is idealistic- just highlights that seem like creating a shipping empire was rather easy from the bottom up and passed on through 4 generations. Since this book was written in the late 1940s, it uses some language that we don’t use today. I always look at old books through the lens of its time, so I won’t criticize that.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite Holling so far!

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spectacular.
“Again and again she passed above places she had known a thousand times—yet to Seabird the world was always freshly new…”

[Erica · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was on my Weeding cart due to low circulation, and upon closer inspection, I realized that despite the compelling details about whaling, sailing, and the history of shipping trade & occupations, this is so full of casual assumptions about the centrality of white experiences that I can't in good conscience leave it on the open shelves of our library.

People are referred to by their ethnic identity ("the Eskimo" "the Negro cook" etc.) only if they are not white. Although this nomenclature is probably "authentic" to the historical periods described, it is insulting to readers and could further stereotypes & bias that are hurtful to people of any identity.

An adult reading it aloud to a child could insert a phrase such as, "...back then many white people thought it was acceptable to talk like this & treat people like this, but it isn't" - or something along those lines. However, since there is no effective & appropriate way to suggest that in our catalog or in the book itself, I've decided to pull it from our collection.

Now our library has more than one copy for reference, research, & public use, but no child will stumble across these casual affronts by accident.

I have given it an extra star (above the lowest rating) because the realism of the descriptions of historical roles on ships is valuable, and the smaller drawings are expertly done.

[Brooke Kinabrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first Holling Clancy Holling book to read out loud with my boys and it will not be our last. This book is a true living book where Holling takes the reader on a journey that captures the imagination and is a launching pad for so many veins of learning within each page.

The illustrations that border each main illustration was a favorite of mine. Little black and white sketches that added depth to the story and allowed you to dig deeper into what was being covered in the story on that particular page.

The story itself followed started with a young boy, Ezra, who carved a seabird…we follow along as Seabird journeys around the world on different seafaring adventures. The little ivory carved bird passed from one generation to the next . It follows along as we witness the seafaring life of four generations and how transportation changes from that of a whaling ship, then to a clipper filled with spices and trade, a steam ship run on coal, to a big ocean liner, ending with a “ship” in the air.

We used this book as the spine of geography as we followed Seabird around the world. Art, history, world culture, etc… all of which layered one upon the other offered a rich learning opportunity at every page.

[Jenny Wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our first official read-aloud for 2010-2011. N loved it and wanted to give it 5 stars because of the characters, she says. I gave her the choice...was it the pictures, the language, the characters, the subject? The characters. Especially Seabird.

I found the language soothing, introducing me to ship language that I've been exposed to before, but always find a little mysterious. Loved the passage of mentoring through four generations.

B wanted to give it 3.5 stars. He thought it was a good book, he says, but thought the same thing happened over and over and over again. Found the story subtle which he interpreted as too childish and boring.

[Contemplative · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another H C H classic natural science "living book". Sea Bird takes us on a wonderful adventure through the shipping industry beginning with whaling and ending with actual flight in planes. Who would have thought so much change could happen over one lifetime and through four generations? The beginning whaling chapters weren't exactly our favorite but the story did pick up for us after that. There's a wonderful unit study resource at www.homeschoolshare.com that can be used along with this book.

[Kaycee Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

As all of Holling’s stories, this was wonderful and the illustrations were lovely. Unlike Paddle to the Sea, this story spans a long period of time (a century) and it was helpful to see all the change happen through the lens of Ezra’s family.

He is such an inspiring author - I can’t imagine our school week without his pleasant voice and vision!

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holling's books are beautifully written and illustrated, bringing history and geography to life. This one is best for 8 and up as the technical sailing details make it a little more difficult to follow.

[Brit Chhangur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read in 2022 with Annie and Calvin.
Read again in 2025 with Lucy and Knox.
Maybe my favorite Holling C. Holling book?

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5-3 stars for the text, but 5 stars for the illustrations in the margin. This is yet another Newbery finalists about ships. It's a short books, each two pages are a chapter and one of them is a full page illustration. It follows a family of seamen, beginning with Ezra, the ship boy on a whaler, who is startled while on iceberg watch by an gull and saves the ship from crashing. To solidify his luck, he carves the seabird from two walrus tusks and decorates it with a miscellany of other sea flotsam. Eventually he becomes a captain (clipper ship), sires a son (clipper and coal fired steamer, who in turn sires a son (ship designer and oil fired ships), who also sires a son who aspires to fly. The seabird accompanies them all. The main illustrations are nice, but the line drawings in the margins really made the book for me. I read this for my 2019 Reading Challenge and my Newbery Challenge (Honor Book 1949).

[Willow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This started slowly for us; the kids groaned a bit each time we opened it up, but after several days, they began asking to read more than one 'chapter' at a time (each page is treated as a chapter; the pages are full-text, with illustrated facing pages). They really began to enjoy it at that point.

I don't think this would have worked for us if they were significantly younger. The style was different than that of most of our other reading, and it took some extra concentration to follow, in places (could just be my mom brain talking, though). Probably one to save for kids 9 and up, or thereabouts.

There was a use of "heck" and some rougher language by a sailor (though not swearing or anything. Just... rough). One sailor turns out to be a bad guy and there is a near-drowning. The great-grandfather dies at the end, but it's gentle and just says that he didn't awake when they tried to rouse him from his sleep.

[Laurie Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember reading this book as a child, in the 1950s, and really loving it, especially the very detailed illustrations and explanations in the margin of a whole host of seafaring matters from the 19th century.

I was very pleased to find it still in print, and even more so when my wife was kind enough to get it for me as a Christmas present.

It lives up to, and even exceeds my memories of it. Of course, some of the terms it uses, and the coverage of whaling in such detail, are not exactly politically correct these days. However, all these things happened, and for good reasons at the time, and they are accurately presented here. It does no harm at all for the current generation to be aware of them and understand them.

[Meredith Broadwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

We read this over the course of a few months, 1-2 chapters per week, as part of our homeschool. The drawings are superb. The story kept me going. My only complaint is that I needed more information... I don't know if my generation is too far removed from the published date to understand some of the lingo and concepts about ships, etc, or if it's just me personally, but I'm missing some background knowledge. However, my 2nd grader's narration almost always caught the main ideas so it was a successful read aloud. My K son also enjoyed it and often asked for additional readings. I cried at the end 🤣

Content warning: Some of the language used is not considered appropriate today, but if you're reading aloud it is very easy to edit.

[Susannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ezra, Ship's Boy on a whaling vessel in 1830, sights a pure white bird in a snowstorm while on watch in the crow's nest. Inspired, he creates Seabird, a scrimshaw masterpiece made from walrus tusk. Seabird travels with Ezra and his descendants--a sailor, an engineer, and an airman--over the course of a century. Holling's description of the wind, waves and sky made me long to sail in a clipper, but the whaling vessel would be less than pleasant. Thank goodness the need for whale oil is past! I can't think of a better way for children to learn about these bygone occupations than through a story. The drawings are detailed, interesting, even humorous. and the paintings colorful and absorbing.