Some kids grow up wanting to be president.
Henri Vaillancourt, a New Englander of French-Canadian descent, grew up wanting to build canoes. This is a short, pleasant book. It would probably benefit from a diagram and a photograph or two, but McPhee's writing leaves nothing to complain about. One of the things I like is that McPhee is comfortable with contradiction, and feels no need to pin every detail down and explain it. If these men had been shooting each other instead of shooting rapids, their lights would now shine with the cowboys'.