An odd assortment designed for entertainment over education.
While fish are similar in having fins, gills, tails, and usually scales, in other ways they can be surprising.
Shumaker’s debut picture book introduces a variety of unusual fish grouped into 18 different examples of intriguing appearances or behaviors. She introduces her categories page by page, with single lines of rhyming couplets in a large, legible type: “Some fish dance and some play dead. / One fish sports a see-through head!” The groupings seem arbitrary, as is often the case for collections of curiosities, but the facts are certainly interesting and generally accurate. The page designs vary widely. Some spreads are filled with cheerful cartoons full of different fish species. Other pages feature a single fish, sometimes with further details and labels in a smaller font. These fish have googly eyes and expressive faces but are reasonably recognizable in appearance. Many pages include a box with further facts—but not always the same kinds of facts. Beyond the species name, there might be observations, field notes, or a relevant question. Most fish also have a “freakiness” or “funkiness” rating displayed, as if that, too, were a fact like its interesting behavior or location. Three pages of backmatter give more information about fish that zap, sting, sing, and so on. Pair with Corinne Demas and Artemis Roehrig’s Do Jellyfish Like Peanut Butter?, illustrated by Ellen Shi (2020), for more marine fun.
An odd assortment designed for entertainment over education. (further learning, selected sources) (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7624-6884-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Running Press Kids
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on.
Sharpson offers so-fish-ticated readers a heads up about the true terror of the seas.
The title says it all. Our unseen narrator is just fine with other animals: mammals. Reptiles. Even birds. But fish? Don’t trust them! First off, the rules always seem to change with fish. Some live in fresh water; some reside in salt water. Some have gills, while others have lungs. You can never see what they’re up to, since they hang out underwater, and they’re always eating those poor, innocent crabs. Soon, the narrator introduces readers to Jeff, a vacant-eyed yellow fish—but don’t be fooled! Jeff’s “the craftiest fish of all.” All fish are, apparently, hellbent on world domination, the narrator warns. “DON’T TRUST FISH!” Finally, at the tail end, we get a sly glimpse of our unreliable narrator. Readers needn’t be ichthyologists to appreciate Sharpson’s meticulous comic timing. (“Ships always sink at sea. They never sink on land. Isn’t that strange?”) His delightful text, filled to the brim with jokes that read aloud brilliantly, pairs perfectly with Santat’s art, which shifts between extreme realism and goofy hilarity. He also fills the book with his own clever gags (such as an image of Gilligan’s Island’s S.S. Minnow going down and a bottle of sauce labeled “Surly Chik’n Srir’racha’r”).
A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780593616673
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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