DON'T EAT THE CLEANERS!

An introduction to a most unusual cleaning service.

In Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and other coral reefs around the world, tiny cleaner fish and shrimp play a vital role, removing parasites and dead skin from bigger fish, which line up for the privilege. Stockdale, who mentioned this behavior in her picture book Line Up! (2022), now devotes a whole book to this example of symbiosis. She uses exposition rather than the rhymed couplets characteristic of her many previous titles—an appropriate choice, given that this topic requires a bit of explanation, deftly provided. Stockdale describes the need for cleaning, notes how the cleaners let bigger fish know they’re open for business, and tells readers about the benefits this mutually helpful activity provides both cleaners and cleanees. Youngsters may be shocked to learn that even hungry sharks get their teeth cleaned this way. Even more surprisingly, tiny cleaner fish will readily clean scuba divers’ mouths if they remove their mouthpieces. In Stockdale’s clean, stylized, digitally rendered illustrations, the fish are easily recognizable, shown in a coral reef on a solid blue background (except for the moray eel in its brown den). She closes with a page of marine life, labeled by name, and an invitation for readers to go back and find each within the various scenes.

A striking demonstration of cooperation in the natural world.