UglyFish Bookclub

Reviewed by: Hurricane, Seema and Shark

This was a terrific alphabet book that we all enjoyed, although Shark is WAY past the alphabet. Each letter of the alphabet is presented opposite of an object that begins with that letter–standard fare, right? Wrong.

The illustration facing the text comes from a portion of a painting in the Getty Museum’s collection. Every page shows a beautiful close-up of a painting by a master, some familiar and some new to us. In tiny text beneath the illustrations are the artists’ names, birthplaces, birth and death years and the year the painting was completed. Hurricane, being two, was not interested in any of that information, but Shark was really amazed by how old these paintings are.

At the end of the book is a gallery that shows the entire painting. We loved seeing the paintings and trying to remember and identify the part that had been featured and enlarged in the book. Our complaint, however, was that the images in the gallery were really small, and we weren’t able to see them as well as we would have liked. I guess we’ll have to check out the Getty Museum when we’re in Los Angeles this summer to really get a look.

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Reviewed by: Seema and Hurricane

 If you don’t want your toddler learning the word ‘yuck,’ this is NOT the book for you.  Hurricane already knew it and takes great pleasure in saying it, so this book was right up his alley.  It’s all about what animals would eat for supper–”What’s for supper?  This baby eats a worm.  A wriggly worm, tugged out of the lawn?  That’s not our baby’s supper. YUCK!”

It goes on and on with a spider, a rotten egg, a rat and more until we get to warm milk–YUM!  But what would all those animals say to warm milk for supper?  YUCK! The drawings are huge and emotive–they make you feel what the words say.  The gross looks gross and the baby drinking milk out of a sippy cup looks so content with milk spilling down her cheeks that Hurricane got a craving and went running off looking for milk.  When he couldn’t open the fridge, he came back to where we had been reading and said, “Yuck!  Again?  Pleeeese?”  So I guess he liked it too!

Reviewed by: Seema

On the radio one afternoon, Shark and I heard an interview of a reporter who had traveled along with Paul Watson and The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. If you don’t know who Paul Watson is (we didn’t at the time), he’s an environmental activist and a sea captain who works to save whales from whaling ships that hunt whales at the bottom of the world–around Antarctica. He and his team are very passionate about saving the whales, and sometimes they get into battles with whaling ships, occasionally even sinking ships and hurting crew members. Shark and I both agree that whales are amazing creatures that deserve protection–particularly the endangered species that are being hunted illegally. But there’s a gray area that we couldn’t decide upon. Does the end justify the means?
That means, does the reason a person is doing something make the way they are doing it okay? It’s really tough to decide because the whale hunters, though they may be in the wrong, are living beings. And while  attacking ships at sea is illegal, so is hunting and killing whales. It’s definitely something to think about.  And while you’re thinking about it, have I got a book for you to read!
It’s called ‘Big Blue Whale’ by Nicola Davies. If you’ve ever wondered about how big a blue whale really is and what it would be like to see one, this book is right for you.  If you’ve never wondered about that, this book will have you dreaming about swimming deep in the sea alongside a blue whale anyway.  The pictures are simple and beautiful and the author compares the whale’s skin and teeth to things from our real life (a hard boiled egg and our fingernails for example) , so we can really get an idea of what touching a whale would be like. Even if you’re past picture books (or a grown-up) you will want to read this book again and again.