YOU BE YOU

There are many fish in the sea—and they are all different.

Adri, a winsome fish, spends the day exploring, and as he heads home, he can’t help but notice variety in the assortment of finned creatures that surround him. In this companion to the earlier Only One You (2006), which presented Chicken Soup–type advice to the same young fish, Kranz escapes didacticism and provides young readers with an appealing look at diversity. Primarily focused on opposites such as right and left, up and down, big and tiny, smooth and spiny, the bouncy, rhymed text points out differences, while colorful fish swim through the pages illustrating the aforementioned variations. If there is a flaw in Kranz’s stylistic rockfish, it is that the differences are not always obvious, as all of the fish have a similar look, but this will serve to make children examine the pictures more closely. Presented with clarity, the distinctions are nicely summarized by Adri himself when he returns to his parents: “There are so many of us…We all have something special that only we can share.” Youngsters will enjoy the catchiness of the text and the lively nature of the illustrations, while appreciating the concepts found within, and parallels can easily be drawn to differences of all sorts.

A good choice to help children consider similarities and differences.