DOES A FIDDLER CRAB FIDDLE?

Silly questions and straightforward answers make up this visual and verbal introduction to the fiddler crab.

A spoonful of sugar makes facts sticky. Here, alternating pages ask a question in the form of a joke and answer it with a factual statement about fiddler crabs, common residents of the sand and mudflats, especially along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The authors cover important characteristics: their unequally sized claws, their habitat, their digging, breathing, eating, and senses, curious locomotion and regenerative abilities, and other protective adaptations. The humor is irresistible, and Sandford makes good use of it in his paintings. The opening, titular question is illustrated with a top-hatted crab playing a violin. Later, readers see crabs with hard hats building in sand, crabs with chef’s hats making pizza, crabs with sunglasses, skateboards, knitting needles, hockey sticks, and more. The pacing is good; the questions and answers often involve a page turn, but some scenes get (and deserve) double-page spreads. This simple overview does not point out that it is only the male who has "one enormous claw." In the text, he "breathes air," but the backmatter states that these crabs "breathe through gills, which they must keep moist." In fact, they do both.

Cheerful and modestly informative, this will be most appreciated where these crabs are familiar.