THAT for Dinner? Octopus Stew by Eric Velasquez

When grandma saw my painting of Super Octo, she got the idea to make pulpo guisado, octopus stew, not exactly my favorite dish.

"But Dad makes that," I said.

Grandma snapped at me. "I've been making pulpo guisado since your dad era un nino, since he was a boy!"

Ramsey knows better than to argue with Grandma when she's on a roll, so he follows orders to remove his superhero cape and keep his phone in his pocket and goes shopping with her to find just the right octopus.

And when Grandma cooks, she goes BIG.

Grandma picked the biggest octopus in the store.

It looked like it was still alive...

and kind of creepy.

Ramsey googles directions for prepping octopuses for stew, but Grandma orders him to put that phone away, so he watches from a safe distance as Grandma washes the octopus and drops it in her biggest stew pot on the stove. But when he hears some scary noises from the kitchen, Ramsey has to investigate.

BRRRR! BLOOP! THUMP!

BUT IT WAS TOO LATE!

The giant octopus is out of the pot and grabbing Grandma!

It's up to Ramsey to use his superhero powers to rescue his grandmother...or is this just another octopus tall tale?

In his latest, Octopus Stew (Holiday House, 2019), for extra fun, author-illustrator Velasquez offers two alternate endings for this wild tale: in one, donning his superman cape, Ramsey fights his way through black octopus ink spray to free Grandma--and in a four-page gatefold there's an alternate ending, as Ramsey's dad questions his story as too far-fetched.

"DAD! It's my turn to tell the story tonight! May I please finish now?"

And in a surprising conclusion, the whole family sits down with an octopus for dinner--in more ways than one. Not only does the author offer a glossary of Spanish words, but also the family recipe for octopus stew. The award-winning Velasquez is a master story teller in words and in vivid acrylic art work, this newest picture book goes big in exaggerated tale-telling. As Publishers Weekly describes it, "Oil paintings by Velasquez have a lush, generously sculptural feel—a heightened comic realism that's perfect for this domestic tall tale, its multi-armed nemesis, and the wonderful gatefold twist that occurs at the action's height."

Under the Sea: The Mermaid by Jan Brett

UNDER THE SEA, THE OCTOPUS FAMILY GOT READY FOR A SWIM BEFORE BREAKFAST.

Baby Octopus's floppy hat is clamped firmly down on his head, as Mama Okasan and Papa Otosan leave their meal waiting inside the cozy undersea house and set out for their morning constitutional. But their home soon has an unexpected visitor.

A dark-tressed mermaid, Kinira, soon swims by, with her pet pufferfish Puffy, and she has no compunctions about swimming uninvited into the lovely little shell house.

"TAKE CARE!" PUFFY WARNED. "YOU NEVER KNOW WHO MAY LIVE THERE!"

But Kinira is enchanted by the little house, especially the meal set forth, with three charming shell plates waiting for someone. She tries the food on the biggest shell, but quickly finds it too crunchy. The second breakfast is seriously slimy! But Kinira pronounces the food on the smallest shell perfectly pleasing.

"JUST RIGHT!"

Despite Puffy's cautions, Kinira tries out the chairs in the sitting room, breaking the smallest shell seat. Still undeterred, she swims into the bedroom, where she spots the sweetest and the smallest sleeping shell and curls up inside for a nap.

By this point, savvy kids will know exactly where this story is going, in noted author-illustrator Jan Brett's latest, The Mermaid(G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2017). As she did in her best-selling The Three Snow Bears, which also takes the familiar folktale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears out for another walk around the literary block, Brett provides a unique setting in a re-imagined version inspired by the undersea world around the Pacific island of Okinawa. Brett's heroine is an appropriately Asian mermaid, not with golden locks, but a golden crown which she leaves behind for Baby Octopus in a visually delightful re-creation of the beloved story of the intrepid young home invader. Children will giggle as Baby Octopus delivers his big line--along the lines of "Somebody's been crunching my crustaceans!" and they will cheer as the loyal Puffy pokes away at his sleeping mistress, waking her just in time to make her getaway, dodging the 24 outreaching tentacles and leaving behind her tiara as a consolation for Baby Octopus.

Brett's elegant artwork, done with touches of Japanese style and deliciously delicate colorization, is, as always, the centerpiece of the story, not to mention her trademark frames around each page, which reveal additional details of the story. Author-illustrator Brett is at the top of her game in this resplendent new picture book. As School Library Journal says sagely, "... readers could spend hours diving into all there is to explore. A one-on-one treat for folktale aficionados and, of course, for Brett's many fans."