With My Little Eye: I Spy Under The Sea by Edward Gibbs

"I SPY...SOMETHING WITH A CURLY TAIL.

I AM NAMED AFTER AN ANIMAL YOU CAN RIDE."

A picture-puzzle tempter to touch, pictures you can count on, and written riddles to tease the brain--that's what you can spy under the sea in Edward Gibbs tempting die-cut book, I Spy Under the Sea (Templar/Candlewick Press, 2012) with seven sweet seahorses with spiral tails to enumerate.

There are under-the-sea sightings with a "funny" name--clownfish, critters that walk "sideways"--crabs, and many-armed mollusks (yes, they are mollusks)--otherwise known as octopuses, as well as those popular denizens of the deep--dolphins, swordfish, seals, and, (YIKES!) one sharp-toothed shark looking back hungrily at the reader.

Kids can count down from eight, guess and then discover the critter hinted at and pictured in part through the die-cut circles on each page, and marvel at how the pictures on each double-page view reveal, through the opening, the hinted-at detail of the next picture's ocean resident. It is great vocabulary-building fun as well for the young, complete with engaging digital illustrations and sturdy board covers that finally offer the little reader a chance to view his or her own "habitat" through that magic circle in the back cover. Seaside fun without the sandy feet!

"A clever introduction to ocean life," says Kirkus Reviews.