POOR DOREEN

A clueless fish owes her escape from a fisherman and a great blue heron to sheer dumb luck in this “fishy tale.”

A little round fish in a kerchief, Miss Doreen Randolph-Potts wends her way upstream to visit her cousin when she spies a dragonfly “darting, / dancing deliciously above her.” Thinking she’s found a “lovely snack,” Doreen unknowingly swallows the fisherman’s lure as he rapidly reels her in and tosses her into his bucket. Gleefully assuming she’s on an “outing,” Doreen’s equally oblivious when the heron snaps her up and flies off. Thanking the heron for escorting her on her journey, Doreen asks if he’s an egret, prompting him to open his beak to correct her. Suddenly “plunging and plummeting” through the air, unflappable Doreen’s thrilled to be “FLYING” and eventually falls back into the stream and swims on, unaware of her close calls. Laced with panicky warnings from the narrator alerting Doreen to her impending mortal danger, the alliterative text tracks her perilous journey in humorous detail while its typographic placement visually follows her up, down and across double-page spreads. Rendered in pencil, watercolor, gouache and colored pencil, the fluid illustrations effectively rely on light and arresting perspectives to highlight Doreen’s precarious situations.

Ignorance equals bliss in this amusing, cleverly executed tale.