Cozy Classics: Moby Dick

By Jack Wang and Holman Wang

Cuddle up with a classic! In twelve needle-felted scenes and twelve child-friendly words, each book in this ingenious series captures the essence of a literary masterpiece. Simple words, sturdy pages, and a beloved story make these books the perfect vehicle for early learning with an erudite twist. Budding bookworms will delight in this clever retelling of the classics made just for them!

In Herman Melville's Moby Dick, meet an enterprising young sailor, tremble at the fierce Captain Ahab, and follow their thrilling pursuit of the white whale. It's a first words primer for your literary little one!

The Cozy Classics series is the brainchild of two brothers, both dads, who were thinking of ways to teach words to their very young children. They hit upon the classics as the basis for their infant primers, and the rest, as they say, is history. From Moby Dick to Pride and Prejudice, here are The Great Books of Western Literature for toddlers and their parents in board book form—mdash;a little bit serious, a little bit ironic, entirely funny and clever, and always welcome.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chronicle Books Digital
• Release date: Mar 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781452154077

Jack Wang

JACK WANG is the author of the story collection We Two Alone, winner of the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and longlisted for Canada Reads. His writing has appeared in the Fiddlehead, Brick, PRISM international, the Malahat Review, the New Quarterly, and Joyland, and has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and longlisted for the Journey Prize. He held the David T.K. Wong Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and has received grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Canada Council for the Arts. Originally from Vancouver, he lives in Ithaca, New York, with his wife, novelist Angelina Mirabella, and their two daughters.

Reviews for Cozy Classics

[karinnekarinne · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Okay, first of all, the felted objects and photography in the Wangs' retelling of Moby Dick -- I read the digital version, but IRL it's a board book for babies -- are PERFECT. ADORABLE, CLEVER, BEAUTIFUL, PERFECT. I cannot say enough good things about them.

Telling the story of Moby-Dick in a baby-friendly way is a challenge, I suppose. Cozy Classics: Moby Dick uses twelve photographs, and pairs up a single word with each photograph. It can be confusing if you haven't read the classic text; I've never read Melville's version and have only a passing familiarity with the original tale. I could gather the gist of it by reading this board book, but who knows how accurate I was.

I do think the book, as a whole, could have benefited from having a unified theme in the words instead of trying to follow the original storyline; my 18-month-old could understand "boat" but there's a picture of an (ADORABLE) angry Ahab -- at least, that's who I think it is based on my sad half-knowledge -- that's been paired with the word "mad," which is a concept she really doesn't get yet. And "floating" didn't stand a chance. If all the words had been objects, it would have been smooth sailing (har har), but the mix of objects and emotions and action words (like "sail" and "find") is a little harder for her to grasp.

That wouldn't stop me from picking up a copy of this book, though. I'd probably just change the words as I read it, to something more concrete for the little ones. It'd be worth it. The felting! The photography! AAAH SO CUTE.


(three-and-half stars)