KAI'S OCEAN OF CURIOSITIES

The ocean’s wonders enthrall a curious explorer in this immersive French import.

In distinctively vivid white-on-dark-blue illustrations, Topolanski depicts seabeds teeming with marine life, from tiny eels poking out of a sandy patch to swirling drifts of jellyfish and squid amid coral gardens and thick forests of kelp. All this abundance surrounds Kai, a fascinated diver with paper-white skin who provides a sense of scale and whose heavy-duty orange suit supplies the only notes of color other than her diminutive yellow submersible Nessy, which disappears after a few pages, once Kai ventures out to explore. In the brief narrative, basic facts and Kai’s strong responses to each moment’s encounters lyrically intertwine: “Kai is mesmerized. Jellyfish don’t have hearts or heads, yet they have existed for almost five hundred million years. These strange-shaped, transparent creatures look like visitors from another planet. They dance on the currents.” Kai’s “walk beneath the waves” soon comes to an abrupt end, but the author gives young readers thirsty for knowledge a final gift with a visual key identifying all the previously seen flora and fauna; aspiring explorers will be enchanted.

A quick but intense tour of a world beneath the waves.