Are We There Yet?: Following Papa's Song by Giana Marino

AT DAWN LITTLE BLUE NUZZLED ALONGSIDE PAPA AND ASKED, "IS IT TIME?"

Papa says it is time to make their annual journey north to their seasonal territory. But Little Blue has never made that swim and can hardly conceive of what it means to go so far.

"PAPA, HOW WILL WE KNOW WHICH WAY TO GO?"

"WE'LL FOLLOW THE SOUND OF THE WHALES, LITTLE BLUE, JUST LIKE OUR FAMILY HAS FOR YEARS AND YEARS."

Little Blue hears the whale song, but the ocean seems so big and Papa swims so fast. What if he falls behind? Papa answers.

"IF YOU LISTEN CLOSELY, YOU WILL ALWAYS HEAR MY SONG."

Little Blue hears the song of the others ahead, and he sticks very close to Papa, swimming as hard as he can. But soon he begins to look around at all the new and fascinating sights as they pass--all sorts of fish, giant sea turtles, jellyfish, and kelp. And then Little Blue looks beneath him and Papa. It is a very dark blue and seems to go down forever. Papa tells him to look but stay near the surface with him.

Then Little blue glimpses just a flash of silvery light below. Could he just go a bit deeper and see what it is?

He dives down, toward the flicker of light.

EVERYTHING WAS MAGIC, JUST LIKE PAPA SAID.

Down, further in the deep, where few rays of sunlight filter, he sees beautiful creatures, dolpins, luminescent fish, and huge rays that seem to soar through the depths on giant, graceful wings.

But then Little Blue realizes that it is very silent in the deep and that he is feeling cold, very cold. He looks up to where Papa was just a minute ago, but he sees no bulky silhouette against the glittering surface. Little Blue calls for Papa. He calls and calls. All he hears are his own frightened sounds.

What was it that Papa had said for him to do?

Giana Marino's newest, Following Papa's Song (Viking Books, 2014), is a lovely and lyrical salute to fatherhood and to the wonders of the sea. Her exquisite double-page underwater scenes glow with silver, green, and then blue and her shifts in perspective show first the enormity of the humpback whale father and son and the vastness of the ocean depths in which they are indeed small, especially Little Blue, as alone in the dark depths, he listens for his father's song to show him the way, The premise of the young runaway and his safe return to the fold have never had a more moving or splendid setting, which ends, as all prodigal stories should, with the father and child soaring into the sunlight as they breach with joy at their reunion. A beautiful parable of parenthood and a splendid salute to the sea.

See also Giana Marino's noted earlier book, Meet Me at the Moon (Viking, 2012).

The Eye of the Artist: Whale Shines by Fiona Robinson

Once upon a tide...

A whale came by with a message:

ART SHOW IN THE DEEP!

Curated by Mr. Jackson Pollock

Drifting quietly at the bottom of the sea, the creatures of the deep are suddenly electrified with the idea of taking part in an art show. Cuttlefish and Squid get busy producing ink for Octopus, who has a brush in all eight hands. Eel shimmies and squiggles along the bottom, creating a lovely, limpid sand painting on the sea floor.

Hammerhead shapes heroic sculptures from found objects from the many shipwrecks he swims through. Not to be outdone, Wrasse throws herself into creating colorful coral sculptures. Everyone is busy, except for Whale.

"I wish I could make something, but I'm just an advertisement," said Whale.

"Why don't you try?" said a chorus of small voices.

"Plankton, is that you?" asked Whale.

Whale swims toward the tiny voices and discovers that every motion of his flukes set off an explosion of light. These plankton are bioluminescent, and every swish of his tail set off a small explosion of blue-green light in the dark water. It's lovely, but somehow the beauty that the plankton so effortlessly create leaves Whale feeling even more blue.

Whale finally feels the urge to take a breath and breaches high at the surface, and when he does, he notices the sky, moonlit and glowing with millions of stars. He's never noticed how beautiful the sky looks in the clear air.

"Such a shame the other creatures never get to see what I see, " he said.

The starry night reminds Whale of the glowing plankton below, and suddenly he realizes that he can show his friends what a starry, starry night really looks like. With his flukes as a brush, he can create a living painting, one that recreates the world above in moving, glowing light.

In her latest,  Whale Shines: An Artistic Tale (Abrams, 2013), Fiona Robinson's blue-green palette and double-page spreads show the azure ocean above and the gold-brown sea bottom below, populated by a varied bunch of deep sea denizens, all busy getting their artwork ready for the show, all except for the dark, brooding hulk of Whale.

In contrast, when he surfaces into the starlit world above the water line, Whale leaps with delight in a splash of bright foam. With the theme of the outcast, unable to do what the rest of the crowd are up to, Robinson gives her left-behind behemoth the role of the artist who sees what others cannot see and finds the medium to share it with them in a satisfying conclusion that reprises Van Gogh's Starry, Starry Night.

In its starred review, Publishers Weekly calls this one "a standout: up-to-the-minute modern in its irreverence and offhandedness, yet timeless in its understanding of a character’s yearning."

Take a Number! The Long, Long Line by Tomoko Ohmura

"WELCOME! THIS IS THE END OF THE LINE."

An officious-looking bird tweets out a greeting at the end (or beginning) of a long line of animals, as Frog makes #50 in the wait queue.

"IT'S SO POPULAR!" puts in a perky squirrel (#45).

IT ALWAYS IS!" adds a turtle. (#44).

"WHAT'S THIS LINE FOR?" wonders a weasel (#42).

Whatever all these animals are waiting for, it must be good.  Armadillo (#39) perseveres as his long nose suffers from the stink of the skunk right in front of him, Raccoon and Fox amuse themselves by having a jumping contest as the other animals wager on the winner.  Further up the line, Beaver (#28) complains of the logjam.  Sheep (#23) is clearly the holdup, as she freezes in fear of the drooling wolf  (#22) who leers back at her hungrily. Up ahead, Panda (#17) starts the word chain game, and  Baby Joey (#19) in Mama Kanga's pouch, asks the inevitable question:

"ARE WE THERE YET?"

The animals get larger and larger as their wait numbers go down. Zebra (#8) quails at being bookended by predators Lion and Tiger, but he holds his place in line, until finally Elephant (#1) is seen at the head of the line.  What is this long wait for?

A surprise four-page gatefold reveals all the animals boarding the amusement park ride to end all rides, a big blue whale who gives them all the ride of their lives, with loop-the-loop leaps and deep water dives!

Author-illustrator Tomoko Ohmura offers a comical lesson in linear and numerical progression in his clever The Long, Long Line (OwlKids Books, 2013). Ohmura's mostly patient animals are named and numbered in descending order for plenty of incidental learning along the way, and humor and suspense builds with each skillfully-planned page turn until the surprise ride at the end makes it all worth while. It's a whale of a tale that kids will want to experience again and again.

"IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT!" says Tapir.

"I'M GETTING BACK IN LINE!" replies Rhino.

Whale Watch: If You See A Whale by Julie Fogliano

IF YOU WANT TO SEE A WHALE, YOU WILL NEED A WINDOW,

AND AN OCEAN,

AND TIME FOR WAITING AND FOR LOOKING

AND TIME FOR WONDERING, "IS THAT A WHALE?"

And a boat and some oars might come in handy, and a dog to keep you company.

And lots of patience.... But most of all, you will need to focus.

In Julie Fogliano's latest, If You Want to See a Whale (Roaring Brook, 2013), a little red-haired seafarer sets out in his boat to spy a whale--which seems easier said than done. Other sights vie for his attention--pink roses blooming on the hillside, a policeman, a pelican posing on a piling, and what looks like a pirate ship putting into the port.

Clouds changing shape as they float over the ocean are intriguing, but there can't be a whale up there where they are! If you want to see a whale, you must concentrate on the ocean at all times. There might even be one right under the boat!

With the same sort of gentle text and carefully drafted illustrations that made their last collaboration, And Then It's Spring (Booklist Editor's Choice. Books for Youth (Awards)) so notable, shipmates Julie Fogliano and Erin Steed put out to sea in this quiet adventure.  Fogliano's dead-pan, straightforward text is drolly illustrated by artist Steed's humorous takes on her whale-spotting advice. When the narrative warns that you can't get too comfortable while watching for whales, Steed shows her little redhead bobbing sleepily over the ripples in an overstuffed yellow chair, and as the boy studiously keeps his gaze on the watery horizon, the clouds above form a whale, while the real whale swims beneath his boat.

Concentration and the skills of active daydreaming are strange thematic cargo here, but Fogliano's gracious text and Steed's lovely illustrations put this story out to sea in shipworthy fashion. As Booklist says in its starred review, "A gorgeous love song to the imagination. . . It’s breathtaking . . . Fans will be waiting."