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FREAKY, FUNKY FISH

Name: FREAKY, FUNKY FISH
Author: Debra Kempf Shumaker
ISBN: 978-0-7624-6884-3

ODD FACTS ABOUT FASCINATING FISH

by Debra Kempf Shumaker ; illustrated by Claire Powell ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 4, 2021

An odd assortment designed for entertainment over education.

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
WIND IS A DANCE
by Debra Kempf Shumaker ; illustrated by Josée Bisaillon

- BOOK REVIEW
PECULIAR PRIMATES
by Debra Kempf Shumaker ; illustrated by Claire Powell

- BOOK REVIEW
TELL SOMEONE
by Debra Kempf Shumaker ; illustrated by Tristan Yuvienco

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BUTT OR FACE?

From the Butt or Face? series

by Kari Lavelle ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2023

A gleeful game for budding naturalists.

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Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.

In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: July 11, 2023

ISBN: 9781728271170

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore

Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
ODE TO GRAPEFRUIT
by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Bryan Collier

- BOOK REVIEW
WE MOVE THE WORLD
by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Nabi H. Ali

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DON'T TRUST FISH

by Neil Sharpson ; illustrated by Dan Santat ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 2025

A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on.

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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)