Don't trust fish by Neil Sharpson. Illus. by Dan Santat

If ever there was a book to shake a group of kids out of the doldrums, then this is it. Hilariously funny, starting with the instruction on the unusual cover, each page will cause a chuckle or two, then have them laughing out loud as they anticipate what might be over the page, then rolling around with laughter when something is shown that is completely out of the ordinary and totally unexpected.

When you think of fish, lots of differences within the species will come to mind: they lurk under the water where they cannot be seen, some breath through gills, some have lungs, some have legs, most don’t, some give birth to a catch of eggs, while others have live births, some leave their eggs. Whatever way you look at fish there are huge differences and many of these differences are suspicious.

So how can they be trusted? After all they spend all their time underwater where we cannot see them, and they go about in schools. So what are they learning? The blue whale is a big as a bus, and some fish live in such deep oceans that they attract other prey by glowing. So what about the fish in your fish tank. It is just waiting. Some fish disguise themselves by being called catfish or seahorses or tiger sharks, but they are still fish. And they can’t be trusted.

And we don’t know what these fish are doing in the deep, perhaps building giant battle aquariums to take over the world. But that is preposterous!

But says the author, do not trust them. By the end of this funny take on presenting information about fish, children will have taken in a lot of facts in a way that will help them remember them.

Wonderfully illustrated by Dan Santat, readers will have a lot of fun seeing the different fish, looking at the expressions on their faces, and look over all the different types of fish and their attributes. The vast oceans are wonderfully rendered, cold, deep and scary. Lots of little touches intrigued me: the name of the sinking ship, the king fish’s two bodyguards, the fisherman waiting patiently by the hole in the ice, the lesson being taught to the school of fish, and the amazing battle fish imagined at the end. Readers will love this book, laughing out loud at its zany humour and the upside down world it presents, calling out the refrain, ‘don’t trust fish’, learning far more than expected about our natural world, and joining in the fun.

To hear Neil Sharpson reading his story, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iERYMVPlafU

Themes: Fish, Humour, Ocean.

Fran Knight