"The seals on the bus go
'errp, errp errp'
'errp, errp errp'
'errp, errp errp'
The seals on the bus go
'errp, errp errp'
All around the town"
-- from THE SEALS ON THE BUS by Lenny Hort and G. Brian Karas (2000)
"Splash!
"A big breath out and down he goes. His body's just the right shape to
shoot through the water: sleek, smooth, and pointed at both ends. His back
flippers power him one hundred feet down in seconds.
"Seal slips through the seaweed forest -- big eyes searching the gloom.
His sharp ears hear dolphins whistle and a ferrryboat's engine chugging.
"Seal's not the only hungry one down here: bigger things than him are
looking for their supper. His long whiskers are his feelers: they twitch as a
silent swirl of water tells him there's a killer whale on the hunt for a
plump seal meal. With a flick and a twist of his flippers, he dives deeper.
"Two hundred feet down, and it's colder, but Seal doesn't mind. He has
two fur coats that keep him waterproof, and a thick layer of fat under his
skin wraps around him like a blanket. Inside his blubber, Seal's as warm as
you and me!
"Three hundred feet down now, and his heart gets slower...and
slower...until it only beats four times a minute."
There is so much great information packed into the spare text of SEE WHAT
A SEAL CAN DO -- both the narrative about the gray seal we follow here, and
the accompanying fact blurbs (that are set in a smaller type).
I don't know whether it is that seals just look like dogs to me, or
whether having, as a young man, often watched my mom's flat-coated retriever
swimming around in the Bay and seen a real resemblance to seals, but I've
always had an affinity for the big-eyed seals I encounter here basking along
the California coast.
SEE WHAT A SEAL CAN DO begins and ends with beautiful endpapers that
feature two-tone renderings of the eighteen different kinds of true seals. (A
note opposite the title page provides a brief introduction and explains
"true" seals.) The story's mixed media illustrations draw you down through
the ocean deep, and the sweet face and expressive eyes of our main character
really grab us.
"So if you're down by the sea one day, you might spot a seal, lying around
like a fat sunbather. And you might think he's just a slow, dozy creature
that spends his time lazing around...but you'd be wrong. Seal can dive
like a rocket and twist like a dancer -- he's a super-swimming underwater
wonder."
Errp! I really enjoyed this one.
32 pages : 978-0-7636-6574-6 Ages 4-8
Recommended by Richie Partington, MLIS, Librarian, California USA
Richie's Picks _https://richiespicks.com_ (https://richiespicks.com/)
