Just Horsing Around? Pete the Cat: Scuba-Cat by James Dean

PETE THE CAT IS EXCITED.

HE'S GOING SCUBA DIVING!

Pete gets suited up in his swim fins and whisker-sparing mask and takes the plunge, ready to see the underwater world.

Is Pete looking to see a catfish?

Strangely, no. His goal is to see a seahorse.

DOWN, DOWN, DOWN HE GOES.

UP, UP, UP GO THE BUBBLES.

Right away Pete begins to look for seahorses. He sees a swordfish, a blowfish, an octopus, and a stingray, but not a single seahorse.

Then he feels a tickle around his ankles, but all he sees is a school of very small fish swimming by. He swims into a cave where he meets up with a crab with very large claws and a sinuous jellyfish that glows in the dark. But it gets darker and darker as he goes further into the cave, so Pete backtracks out into the open water. Something tickles his shoulder, just as Pete notices it's getting strangely dark again. But he's out of the cave....

SO WHY IS IT GETTING DARKER?

HE'S IN THE SHADOW OF... A WHALE!

Pete wishes a seahorse would appear so he could jump on and ride away, but he settles for hitching a ride on a passing sea turtle who tows him right back to the dive boat.

Pete has seen a lot under the sea, but not a single seahorse! Then he feels that tickle again, this time on his trailing tail.

A SEAHORSE!!

YOU WERE WITH ME ALL ALONG!

Pete's scuba swim is a success at last in James Dean's new Pete the Cat: Scuba-Cat (My First I Can Read) (Harper, 2016). Written with controlled vocabulary for emergent readers, Dean's just published book in Harper's famed easy reader series matches guided reading practice with information about common sea animals in a novel story with his unflappable Pete the Cat, which just might lead youngsters to more books about the sea, perhaps Caldecott winner Arnold Lobel's golden oldie Seahorse (Science I Can Read Book).