Having explored the musical talents of landlubbing creatures in What Animals Really Like, Fiona Robinson turns her attention to artistic-minded ocean-dwellers in this funny and touching tale.
In the upper left-hand corner of the opening two-page illustration swims a barely visible fish beneath a narrow strip of sky. "Once upon a tide...," the story begins. A turn of the page completes the sentence: "...a whale came with a message." Whale now appears front and center, bearing a call for entries for "The Hugest Art Show in the Deep & Briny," curated by Jackson Pollock. As the whale spreads the word, he catalogues all of the projects in progress by his undersea neighbors. Hammerhead composes sculptures from materials left by shipwrecks. Eel makes patterns by wriggling in the sand. Robinson endows each with its own palette and adds comic touches.
Whale wishes he could make something, "but I'm just in advertising," he says. A reply comes back from an unlikely ally, "Why don't you try?" reply the plankton. Robinson acknowledges their adversarial relationship ("please go away before I eat you!"), but as Whale swishes his tail, something happens. Robinson's climax pays tribute to Vincent Van Gogh and the idea that a great artist introduces his or her onlookers to a fresh perspective on the world and shows them a view they've never seen before. The author-artist adds another layer, too: through Whale and the plankton's collaboration, they overcome their differences in service of a greater purpose. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness