Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, 1992)
A popular novelist (The Hero and the Crown, 1985 Newbery Award) makes her picture-book debut with a perceptive glimpse of an experience that has the autobiographical feel of Yolen's All the Secrets of the World (1991). Sara, the small narrator, is constantly aware of her father's existence--she looks at his picture, hears her mother read his letters, tells her friends about him. But she doesn't remember him, and when his ship finally sails in, she's filled with reserve--until he picks her up and her arms go around his neck: "And then I remembered my father." In soft color-pencil art, Gourbault depicts an appealingly orderly world at a generalized time not too long ago, imparting energy with perspectives skewed Zelinsky-style and showing the relationship between parents and child with unusual tenderness. An attractive vignette. 1992, Greenwillow, $14.00; PLB $13.93. © 1992 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Roger Sutton (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, April 1992 (Vol. 45, No. 8))
Gentle, rather pale, colored-pencil drawings have a fifties feel to them that adds a bit of nostalgia to a quiet but direct story of a little girl who does not remember her father, a captain in the Navy. "There was a picture of him on the mantel in the living room. I knew to say 'Good night, Daddy,' when I went to bed. But I didn't remember him." Now, though, Daddy is coming home, and Sara and her mother go down to the dock with all the other waiting families. And when Daddy hugs her, Sara remembers her father. The brevity and restraint of the text allows the ending a poignant surprise, and the simplicity makes the story immediate to young children in a way that Jane Yolen's similarly themed, but overcomplicated All Those Secrets of the World (BCCB 4/91) is not. Gourbault's illustrations have a sophisticated, fluid line that saves them from sentimentality; the whole is a successful exercise in understatement. (Reviewed from galleys) Review Code: R -- Recommended. Subjects: Father-daughter relations. (c) Copyright 1992, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1992, Greenwillow, 24p, $13.93 and $14.00. Grades PreK-2.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, 1992)
A young girl anticipates the return of her father, a ship-captain in the navy, but she is troubled, because she can't remember him. When he arrives, a warm hug dissolves her fears. Soft illustrations complement the reassuring story. Category: Fiction. 1992, Greenwillow, 24pp.. Ages 5 to 9. Rating: 3: Recommended, satisfactory in style, content, and/or illustration.