THE SEVEN SEAS

When a young rabbit daydreams in geography class of visiting the seven seas, the bodies of water he imagines are, well, not water! Speaking in rhyme and first-person voice, the rabbit travels by various means—bus to Marrakesh, taxi to Peru, mule to Istanbul, yak to Timbuktu. As he visits each sea, all named for colors, he’s surprised at what they actually are: The Yellow Sea is lemonade; the Red Sea is pizza sauce; the Black Sea is licorice. “The Brown Sea’s made of chocolate, / a place to drown your cares. / Its whipped cream foam is home sweet home / to brownish, clownish bears.” His seaworthy journey ends with a clever geography lesson about real oceans and seas. In each spread, the cartoonish rabbit, wearing a blue-and-white striped jumper, joins the silliness; in the Green Sea, he scuba dives amid a broccoli reef, and in the Red Sea, he paddles an upside-down mushroom. The exaggeration of the acrylic, textured illustrations and rhymes create an inventive and humorous approach to learning about geography. Backmatter includes further resources and “Fun Facts about Seas and Oceans.” (Picture book. 5-8)