Shared Lives: Catastrophe by the Sea by Brenda Peterson

Catastrophe wandered too far from home.

His whole world now is the beach at low tide..

He's damp and hungry and misses having someone to play with him.

An octopus jets ink at him and slithers under a rocky ledge. He pats at an anemone and provokes a squirt of salty seawater. He is stung when he paws the anemone's tentacles.

"I thought you were dead!" Catastrophe says.

"I'm as alive as you!" the anemone spouts.

But the sea anemone is as curious as Catastrophe about this strange creature on the beach. She tells Catastrophe her name is Naimonee, and the cat sees that the natives of this strange world are friendly. She introduces him to the sea slugs, the sand dollars, the dancing crabs, and the ancient barnacle, Buddy, stuck to his rock with ancient glue.

"Happy homebodies are we," they sing.

Catastrophe's friendly seaside tete a tete is abruptly interrupted by the first wave of the incoming tide and he is tumbled to and fro before he comes to rest far up the beach from his friendly tidal pool friends. He's wet and chilly and still hungry. But that's not all.

Now that the tide is in, he's much lonelier.

But as Catastrophe searches for his new friends, he hears the sound of running feet. He tries to flee, but finds himself a captive in a child's hands.

"You're the one on the LOST CAT posters!" a girl says.

There's no place like home for all of us creatures, and with the farewells of his tidal buddies in his ears, Catastrophe is on his way home, a happy cat, but changed by his experience of life in a different world.

In Brenda Peterson's Catastrophe by the Sea (West Margin Press, 2019), young readers are suddenly awash in the concept of biodiversity, the multitude of seemingly alien creatures with which we share the miracle of life.

There is power in a story that lets readers walk on different feet or swim in different waters. This motif is portrayed in the carefully crafted book design, in swirling lines of type, in the lovely paint and paper collage illustrations of Caldecott Award-winning artist Ed Young, and the sibilant sounds of author Peterson's text. The theme of fellow-feeling between living creatures is driven home to readers just as its cat character returns to his very different, but very happy home. Author Peterson appends more information for young beachcombers with notes by the Seattle Aquarium. Says School Library Journal, "Young's distinctive collage artwork is phenomenal and adds texture and detail. A harmonious picture book that celebrates biodiversity and builds empathy."

What's In A Name? I Am NOT A Fish! by Peter Raymundo

"Um, Hello, there.

My name is Edgar, and I'm a ...

jellyfish!"

Edgar has an identity crisis. It's not HIS crisis. He knows that he's not a fish. It's what he's called that is the problem.

And then he meets another sea creature with a similar dilemma.

"Hello, Edgar. Of course you aren't actually a fish at all.

It's kind of confusing."

It turns out that Edgar's new acquaintance understands. He is a STARFISH. He invites Edgar to join his misfit group. Starfish have identity problems, too!

"Boy, do we understand that!

"I am NOT A FISH!"

Being not-a-fish doesn't mean that you can escape all the problems fish have. Edgar reports that he once was netted and almost canned with a school of sardines!

But hanging out with the starfish gives Edgar a new lease on life. He realizes he's himself no matter what he's called--especially when someone with a new problem swims up.

"Excuse me. My name is Charlie and...

I'm ... a... SEAHORSE."

What's in a name? mused the Bard, and it seems there are a myriad of misnomers in the deep sea, in Peter Raymundo's just published comic story of mistaken eponyms, I Am Not a Fish! (Dial Books, 2019). Raymundo, a noted Disney Studios cartoonist, tell his funny tale of self image with engagingly comic illustrations, good humor, and a bit of insight into mistaken identities. Quips Kirkus Reviews, "Delivered with tentacle-in-cheek buoyancy.”

A Message In A Bottle: The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles by Michelle Cuevas

The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles lived alone on a high spot with only one tree for shade.

He always kept an eye on the waves, watching for a glint of glass.

He had a job of utmost importance.

The shabby, worn old beachcomber, reeking of seaweed and perpetual damp. is the postman of the sea. As he sees his job, it is crucial that any message found in a sea-tossed bottle be delivered to its intended destination. Delivery is not easy. But still he is steadfast in his duty, searching till his compass grows rusty.

Sometimes the messages were old, crunchy, like leaves in the fall, written by a quill dipped in sadness.

But the old beachcomber, whose real name has long since been forgotten, loves his work, because sometimes the messages make people happy. He wonders if he will ever find a message addressed to himself so that he might be glad, too. But who would send him a message?

Each time a part of him hoped to to see his name winking at the top of a page. But then he remembered he had no name and no friends.

Then one day the old sea scrounger finds a message with no intended recipient and no signature, just an open invitation to a party at the village seaport at eventide. It ends...

"Will you come, please?"

He asks about the village. Does anyone know anything about the sender, he asks the baker and a sailor and a resting seagull. The chocolate seller and a girl in a green dress and everyone deny sending the message, but they all agree they would love to dance at such a party. Disappointed that he cannot find anyone to claim the invitation, he decides to go to the appointed place and time of the party and if the sender is there, to make his apologies for failing to deliver.

And when the man arrives at the seaport at sunset, he finds the place decorated in seaweed garlands studded with starfish, and bright candles floating in seashells. The baker is there with a huge cake, and it seems the whole village is there also, even a band, and he himself dances to the music with a girl in green.

It seems that everyone, like he himself, was waiting for an invitation.

In her little parable of loneliness and friendship found, Michelle Cuevas' new The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles (Dial Books, 2016) is as misty and lovely a tale as her seaside setting. The author takes the idea of the message in a bottle and its intriguing mystery as a symbol for the very human desire to make contact with each other, and the lonely figure of the nameless postman of the sea trying to make that human connection is one that people of any age will understand. Cuervas' narrative language is as lyrical as any poem, and Caldecott Award-winning artist Erin Stead sets the mood magically, with wispy, fog-ridden, and evocative images of seaside flotsam and salty citizens that fit the premise perfectly. "A perfect pairing of text and art. Share this quiet story with your wishers and dreamers," says School Library Journal.

To the Rescue! Clark in the Deep Sea by R. W. Alley

With just a glimpse of the beach visible through the spring rain, the four kids are making the best of the bad weather on the front porch. Even the dog in dozing in the doghouse.

CLARK WAS BUSY COLORING WHEN GRETCHEN ANNOUNCED, "IT'S CIRCUS TIME!

PRESENTING BEAR-O, THE BALANCING BEAR!"

BUT BEAR FORGOT TO BALANCE.

Everyone leaps up just as Bear tumbles over the railing into a yard which suddenly morphs into a raging sea.

"LAUNCH THE LIFEBOATS!" CALLED MITCHELL.

"NO TIME!" CRIED CLARK. HE LEAPED OVER THE SIDE.

Be prepared, seems to be Clark's motto. He's into his scuba gear and swimming in pursuit of the rare and apparently ravenous Fur Shark who has Bear in his jaws already. Fearlessly Clark tussles with his captor, and Bear goes free, only to be carried by the wild current into an undersea cave. Clark swims bravely after Bear, snatches him up, and swims toward the roiling surface, only to be encircled by the long, green Million-Mile Eel!

SWIZZZ CAME THE EEL'S ICY SPRAY, PUSHING CLARK AND BEAR INTO THE SEAWEED BOG.

"OUR AIR IS LOW. WHAT A WAY TO GO!" SAID CLARK.

But it's the Submarine Sibling Rescue Squad on duty, and after a bit of a struggle in the wild waves, Clark, Bear, and rescuers are tossed up safely on the porch once more, where little Gretchen is joyfully reunited with her soggy but salvaged Bear.

Now if only the rain would stop....

And as the song goes, "Gray skies are gonna clear up! Put on a happy face!" in R. W. Alley's just-published Clark in the Deep Sea (Houghton Mifflin Clarion, 2016). author Alley's narrative is both succinct and suspenseful, and his illustrations are downright delicious.

Artist Alley makes sly use of the objects visible around the kids in the opening pages--Clark's crayoned drawing of a shark. a garden hose which reappears as the Eel, the shaggy dog who shape-shifts into the Fur-Shark, the yellow galoshes which transform into swim fins, Gretchen's Roly-Poly toys which appear as fishy witnesses to the adventure.  The yellow porch umbrella morphs into the Yellow Submarine, the doghouse doubles as the stinky Fur-Shark cave, and, as a naysayer to the "this didn't really happen, did it?" crowd, the final page features one delightful sight gag in which the loyal umbrella lies wrecked and the kids' shaggy dog suspiciously eyeballs the marooned fish swimming in his water bowl. This tall tale is a light-hearted tribute to the power of imagination that kids will want to scrutinize over and over, and some sharp-eyed page perusers may even notice that on the first page, Clark is crayoning what looks like a page from this very book.

If you can come up with a copy of the classic by Barbro Lindgren, The Wild Baby Goes to Sea, which similarly transmogrifies household objects into the stuff of a wild sea adventure, pair it with Alley's Clark in the Deep Sea for a wonderfully crafted storytime duo that will not disappoint.

And watch for the coming seasonal adventures of the remaining siblings, Mitchell on the Moon and Annabelle at the South Pole from Clarion.

Stormy Crossing: Kobee Manatee: A Wild Weather Adventure by Robert Scott Thayer

"The skies are clear here in Key West. "Are you guys ready to go," I asked.

"Aye Aye, sir!" said Tess.

"Let's go, captain," Pablo replied.

We left for Nassau, in the Bahamas, the home of my sister Kim. I wanted to surprise her on her birthday.

Kobee Manatee is well suited for long ocean trips, being a gifted floater, insulated by a thick layer of blubber. His buddies, Tess, a fancy seahorse and Pablo, a hermit crab, are experienced sea creatures, but not well-equipped for what happens next.

Kobee's innate GPS steers a steady course, but his weather-predicting senses are apparently not so well developed. The brash bunch sets off gaily in fair weather, with Kobee swimming at a slow, but steady five-miles-an-hour clip under fair skies. But soon Pablo spots some wispy, trailing clouds showing up in the blue sky as they pass Key Largo.

"Cirrus clouds!" Kobee observes, and the fact box at the bottom of the right-hand page, Kobee's Fun Facts, points out that cirrus clouds, sometimes known colloquially as "mare's-tale clouds," herald a change in the weather.

And whether or not they expect it, the three mariners are soon hit by a succession of weather events, a water spout, a massive thunder-and-lightning storm presaged by a shelf cloud, and Tess and Pablo are blown clear off Kobee's big belly and have to swim for their lives back to their big gray life preserver. Luckily, the storm blows itself out and the sailors are blessed with the familiar fair-weather cumulus clouds in their sky.

But it's only a momentary respite. Before they know it, they find themselves in the warm and wild Gulf Stream, an river of tropical water which warms the eastern coast of the U.S and even the western coast of Europe, but also is a potent weather creator. Poor little Tess is carried off in a rip current, but being a well-taught pupil of Kobee's she knows just what to do.

"I was really scared, but I just floated, and then swam out of the current when I could."

But there's not much respite for the three ocean-goers, because "spinning scaly clouds" soon appear on the horizon.

"Yikes! They bring dangerous weather!" yelps Kobee.

And at least this prognostication of Kobee's is on track. In short order they three navigators are hit by a giant rogue wave that tosses even Kobee about like a sock in a washing machine, followed by a full-blown, hard-blowing hurricane. Yikes is right! The three batten down their figurative hatches and hang tight through the eye of the hurricane, as Kobee points out that the wind direction reverses as they go back into the other side of the storm.

But on the other side of the big storm, they are rewarded with sunny skies and the sight of the beautiful reefs off the coast of Nausau. And soon it's party time in the blessedly still waters of sister Kim's Blue Lagoon, in Robert Scott Thayer's latest in series, KOBEE MANATEE: A Wild Weather Adventure (Thompson Mill Press, 2015). This book doubles a weather-study lesson with a bit of oceanography thrown in for free. Kobee is a jolly gentle giant of a narrator. Manatees are popular ocean mammals, big and slow, non-threatening vegetarians, but endangered, beloved of children and tourists, and Kobee makes a fine explainer-in-chief for his pupils, Tess and Pablo, along with the treasure-map-style Fun Facts boxes which fill in the details of Kobee's floating lessons, making this engaging story an easy, reinforcing read for curriculum content in the early elementary grades.

Artist and designer Lauren Gallegos fills the book with flamboyant, full-bleed acrylic illustrations with plenty of detail to keep the story, er, flowing freely right to the Happy Birthday party with Kobee playing and singing a special song for his sister (CD included) and for an under-the-sea party to celebrate the end of the unit.

Another book in this buoyant series is Kobee Manatee: Heading Home to Florida.

Zen in the Sands of Time: How Roland Rolls by Jim Carrey

SOMEWHERE...

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DEEP BLUE SEA,

A WAVE NAMED ROLAND CAME TO BE.

Roland first sees the light of day as a wee ripple, but as his sort do, he begins to build, and before you know it, Roland is rolling along as a swell (sorry 'bout that!) wave.

Roland rolls across the surface with big dreams and an inchoate longing for a friend. Dolphins rise and surf along on his occasional crest, but then sink beneath the sea. Passing whales breach briefly and soon slip away among the waves with only a passing comradely glance. Sea birds dive and surface around him, but sadly, their ticklish feathered friendship is flighty and fleeting, too. Roland longs for something more.

And then he meets his soul mate, a lovely wave named Shimmer, whose glimmer is beguiling and who is ready to roll along with Roland wherever time and tide take them.

But there's the rub! Roland soon learns that his ocean is not all of what there is. Somewhere there's land, and where there's land, there's a beach, and where there's a beach, waves must break. And then,... WHAT?

The sizable sales of actor Jim Carrey's new How Roland Rolls (Some Kind of Garden Media, 2013) seem to be saying, with its Zen-like premise, that primary schoolers can grasp the concept of the demise of the individual as he merges with the universal mind, a religious philosophy of venerable standing:

WE'RE NOT LITTLE WAVES.

WE'RE THE BIG WIDE OCEAN!

IN ALL OF THE RIVERS....

IN ALL OF THE STREAMS...

THE PUDDLES, THE POOLS, AND MOM'S IRON WHEN IT STEAMS.

It's not Miss Nelson's water cycle lesson, for sure.

Celebrity literary ventures tends to be a mixed lot at best. The "professional" reviewers seem to have opted out of reviewing this one, although Carrey's co-celebrities have not shared that reticence. Indeed the picture book format  seems a strange vehicle for a parable drawn from Buddhist belief, (although it can be said to work just as well as a lesson on that ever-popular science subject, the water cycle.)  Rob Nason's artwork is pleasant and engaging, doing what it can to give a wave a unique personality, a dicey proposition at best, given Roland's changeable persona. Average kids may find this one a bit bemusing, and it's definitely not for everyone, but some may find the concept novel and intriguing.

Pair this one with some of Jon Muth's Zen stories, such as his Caldecott-winning Zen Shorts (Caldecott Honor Book).