Food chain

K-Gr 2-It is difficult to pinpoint an audience for this book. The simple words are appropriate for preschoolers or beginning readers, but the gruesome pictures are likely to be too scary for most young children. A cute little fish in a bowl is dumped into a toilet by a naughty boy. The child is shown sitting on said toilet as the poor creature follows a long smelly pipe to the big ocean, where it is promptly swallowed by a bigger fish. The bigger-fish-eating-smaller-fish plot goes on for a few pages until the largest fish is caught by a fisherman and is eaten by the naughty boy. The thought of him ultimately eating his former pet is bad enough, but the story doesn't end there. The boy goes swimming at the beach where he is swallowed by a huge whale that is inexplicably close to the shore. But the lucky child escapes through the creature's blowhole. So what exactly is the message here? Bad boys win? The book blurb describes the story as funny, quirky, and clever, but the pen and watercolor illustrations of toothy, bulbous-eyed fish devouring one another is more disturbing than entertaining.-Martha Simpson, Stratford Library Association, CT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Swimmy is still the gold standard. (Picture book. 4-7)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

K-Gr 2—It is difficult to pinpoint an audience for this book. The simple words are appropriate for preschoolers or beginning readers, but the gruesome pictures are likely to be too scary for most young children. A cute little fish in a bowl is dumped into a toilet by a naughty boy. The child is shown sitting on said toilet as the poor creature follows a long smelly pipe to the big ocean, where it is promptly swallowed by a bigger fish. The bigger-fish-eating-smaller-fish plot goes on for a few pages until the largest fish is caught by a fisherman and is eaten by the naughty boy. The thought of him ultimately eating his former pet is bad enough, but the story doesn't end there. The boy goes swimming at the beach where he is swallowed by a huge whale that is inexplicably close to the shore. But the lucky child escapes through the creature's blowhole. So what exactly is the message here? Bad boys win? The book blurb describes the story as funny, quirky, and clever, but the pen and watercolor illustrations of toothy, bulbous-eyed fish devouring one another is more disturbing than entertaining.—Martha Simpson, Stratford Library Association, CT