sea creatures

MerTales: The Best Friend Promise by Rebecca Timmis

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Do you need a new series of books to hook the young mermaid lover in your life? Rebecca Timmis has exactly what you’re looking for! The Best Friend Promise is the first book in Rebecca’s new series, MerTales, and it’s out now.

Pearl the mermaid is turning nine and she’s super excited for her party. While escaping from a reef shark on her way to school Pearl sees a shooting star crash into the ocean, and everything changes. Pearl’s tail starts to glow and shimmer, and now she can talk to animals. Pearl tries to show her friends that she can talk to animals but none of her friends believe her. Pearl makes the most of being able to talk to animals, especially when it comes to riding her seahorse, Silverdust. When Pearl upsets another mermaid from her class, Pearl and her friends must venture into the Weeded Wood to rescue her. Pearl will have to hope that her magic power is enough to save them all from a hungry reef dragon.

The Best Friend Promise is a bright, fun story that will hook young readers on this series. It is bursting with Rebecca’s cute black and white illustrations, with splashes of colour, lots of sea puns, and short chapters, making it perfect for newly independent readers. The cover is bright and shiny, and it will make the book hard to resist. My 6 year old daughter loves mermaids and we loved reading this together. It was fun to read aloud.

MerTales is perfect for fans of Sally Odgers’ Pearl the Unicorn series and readers who love mermaids, magic and animals.

Squidding Around: Fish Feud! by Kevin Sherry

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If you’re looking for a super-fun, pun-tastic graphic novel for younger readers then look no further than Kevin Sherry’s latest, Squidding Around: Fish Feud!

Squizzard and Toothy have been best friends since they were teeny tiny. A squid and a Great White Shark at first seems like an odd friendship but Toothy is a vegetarian so it works. They do everything together but Toothy is getting sick of being pushed around by Squizzard. Toothy finally snaps and says he doesn’t want to be friends anymore. Squizzard has to figure out how to put others first and learn how to be a good friend. If he can do that maybe Toothy will want to be his friend again.

Fish Feud is one of the coolest graphic novels for young readers! It’s colourful, full of jokes and puns, packed with facts and totally hilarious. Kids will be laughing out loud while they read and sharing the jokes with their friends. Jokes like ‘What happened to the shark that ate a set of keys? He got lockjaw!’ It’s a story about friendship too and the importance of compromise. Squizzard is a clown who loves to be the centre of attention. Squizzard always thinks about himself and the games that he wants to play and Toothy feels like he doesn’t get heard. When Toothy snaps Squizzard has to change.

Kevin’s illustrations are bright and bold and his characters are simple but expressive. I love some of the little details of the illustrations, like the pages when the class are doing their oral reports. Each of the kids have brought something to talk about, from their video game to a priceless necklace.

The thing I love most about Fish Feud is the way that Kevin has incorporated facts about the sea creatures into the story. At the same time as laughing your head off you also learn about barracudas, hammerhead sharks, and squid. Sometimes facts are just dropped into the story and other times Kevin will change his illustration style to show you it’s a fact.

Fish Feud is the first book in what will hopefully be a big series. Readers are going to begging for more after reading this one.