DIVE INTO THE SEA!

A smiling clownfish shows off its underwater home.

“Dive into the sea! Let’s meet my friends. / There’s so much to see. The fun never ends.” And thus begins a journey deep into the ocean led by a small clownfish that looks enough like a certain famous fish to catch children’s eyes but not so much that corporate lawyers will come calling. A large star shape cut out of the middle of the cover and framing the clownfish on recto is each page’s focal point, dwindling in size until it disappears for the final one. This gimmick doesn’t add much to the book, which is a fairly typical, generic tour of the ocean. Little readers will encounter grinning sharks, crabs, dolphins, whales, and other aquatic life that is par for the course for undersea board books. “Par for the course” pretty much describes the effort as a whole. The animal life is rendered as rounded, smiling figures, with greens, oranges, and purples popping them out of the blue background. Readers seeking verisimilitude will be maddened by the grinning faces drawn arbitrarily on crabs’ carapaces and jellyfish bodies.

A cute but not noteworthy journey into the ocean.