This clever, delight­ful pic­ture book about Noah’s Ark takes the hap­py parts of Gen­e­sis 6: 9 and recaps them for young­sters in a rhyming for­mat based on The House That Jack Built.

The vocab­u­lary is charm­ing and the pace is fast. Action, char­ac­ters, and illus­tra­tions are fun. Gone is the mean rea­son God sends the flood (bad peo­ple) as well as scary thoughts about the fate of humans and ani­mals not on the boat. The atti­tude is flip and mod­ern: The sons, hard-ham­mer­ing guys, have sweet­hearts, not wives. The text is poet­ic and evoca­tive: water rains with the rush of a deaf­en­ing down­pour and gur­gling gush. The hap­py end­ing of Noah’s jig mesh­es with God’s mov­ing promise sealed by a rainbow.

The fact that this author relies on a Chris­t­ian Bible and a sec­u­lar poem does not dis­tort this Noah ver­sion. After all, the Noah sto­ry pre­dates both reli­gions and the Jack build­ing rhyme itself builds from the Ara­ma­ic poem Chad Gadya first print­ed in the 1590 Prague Hag­gadah. Park on any patch or peak and enjoy this amus­ing book over and over again with your read­ers ages 3 to 6.