From the inside flap: "Falter Tom lived by the sea's edge, for he'd been a sailor in his younger days and the sea was his life. Now all he had left was a bad leg and a string of stories - of pirates and sea monsters, mutiny and shipwreck - which you could believe or not believe. But nobody knew the sea like Falter Tom, except the water boy who appeared one day at half-tide. His skin was as green as a leaf, his hair the colour of copper and he played in the waves like a dolphin. The boy wanted to show all the wonders of the sea to Falter Tom, for he claimed to have lived so long that he knew every mystery of the deep - and sometimes he was lonely. But Falter Tom couldn't swim and he thought he was too old to learn. For friendship's sake, though, he dipped his boot into the water, and it came out dry as a biscuit! Finally, he dipped his whole self in, and together Falter Tom and the water boy swam down to the kings of the sea".
National Library Entry
Title: Falter Tom and the water boy / Maurice Duggan ; illustrated by Faith Jaques.
Date: 1974
By: Duggan, Maurice., Jaques, Faith.
Identifier: ISBN 0722654537 (pbk.)
Notes: Previously published with illustrations by Kenneth Rowell, London : Faber ; Hamilton : Pauls Book Arcade, 1958 and in the New Zealand school journal.
New Zealand author.
Publisher: Harmondsworth, London. : Kestrel Books with Longman Paul, 1974.
Format: 64 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
Maurice Duggan was an influential New Zealand writer of the mid-20th century and when he released "Falter Tom and the Water Boy", it won the Esther Glen Junior Fiction Award in 1959. The book was popular in New Zealand and overseas.
The story is under 100 pages, but it is beautifully written, and full of magic and suspense. The relationship between the old sailor and the green, mysterious boy is full of tenderness and trust. There is an underlying sadness to the book, but it is lovely in its own way - I can't really describe it. I think it is because the sailor is old and he is facing death. A bit like the elves in Lord of the Rings.
This isn't your usual children's book. It isn't a page-turner and moves quite slowly in some parts. But it's a lovely story about friendship and magic, and how the sea pays back an old sailor for his service and his faltering leg.
I highly recommend this book for children of all ages.