I am a Fish by Isabel Otter illustrated by Fernando Martin

This is a non fiction book about fish but wow it is far from just a series of facts. This book is presented in first person with fish who speak to you and explain their special features and habitats. Here are a couple of lines from the text:

"I don't have eyelids, so I never need to blink. My eyes stay open all the time."

"Which is the smallest fish? We cannot say for certain because so few of the smallest species have been found, but the stout infantfish is one of the tiniest. It is smaller than the nail on your little finger."

I did learn a couple of new things reading this book. Isabel Otter sorted out my confusion with the words shoal of fish and school of fish.  A shoal is a crowd of fish but if they are all swimming in the same direction it's called a school.

When you read this book right through as I did you will learn so much about fish. I was amazed at how this topic fascinated me aided by the vibrant and lively illustrations. This would be a wonderful book to share with a preschool child. It is sure to answer most of your child's questions about fish!

Every week I am able to pick up books from a local independent school library which caters for children aged 3-8. This week the very generous Teacher-Librarian made a selection for me because our city is in lock down.  She picked out some splendid non fiction and this makes me happy because left to my own devices in her treasure trove of a library I might not have found these special books.

Earlier in the week I shared The Beak Book which looked at birds. Today the topic is fish. We have a book on our CBCA 2021 short list this year called Anemone is not the Enemy.  It is not among my favourites this year but one feature that stands out is the use of fluorescent or neon pink in the illustrations. In the book Anemone is not the Enemy this colour did not appeal to me but in I am a Fish it seems perfect. The end papers in I am a Fish are almost blinding they are such a bright shade of pink. These photos from different pages do not show the true colour but they give you some idea.

I wanted to define the pink used in this book. After a bit of a struggle and some advice from a graphic designer I used an eyedropper tool to match the colour of the cover. This is pretty close to the real pink used in the book.

I am a bird also features illustrations by Spanish illustrator Fernando Martin. Here are some other books by UK author Isabel Otter: