The Only Fish in the Sea

Not quite a fish story, but one with broad humor in text and illustrations, Stead and Cordell's (Special Delivery, rev. 3/15) latest collaboration invites careful looking and sure laughter. Front-matter pages get the story started with a boy named Sherman pedaling determinedly on his bicycle toward the first page-turn. He's on a mission to tell his friend Sadie about Little Amy Scott, who has just rudely rejected a goldfish as a birthday present and then unceremoniously tossed the poor thing (still in a plastic baggie) into the sea. "He must feel like the only fish in the sea," worries sensitive Sherman. Sadie, ably fixing her own bike, is the clear opposite of snooty Little Amy Scott, and she immediately sets off to rescue the goldfish, whom she dubs Ellsworth because "every fish deserves a proper name." The two friends gather an odd array of supplies with the help of a band of monkeys that goes unmentioned in the text but whose antics, in Cordell's energetic ink-and-watercolor illustrations, add much to the story's humor. Throughout, Cordell's style is reminiscent of Quentin Blake's work, with comically perilous seafaring scenes that recall the Miss Armitage picture books. Meanwhile, Stead's text contains echoes of Dahl's writing, with moments of dark humor, a satisfying comeuppance for Little Amy Scott, and a surfeit of heart in the child heroes' rescue of lost Ellsworth. megan dowd lambert