#PictureBookFriday – Boo! A Fishy Mystery

I loved One Fox by Kate Read which I read for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize back in 2020, and hadn’t realised she had a new one out so I was VERY excited to find this last week!

Boo! A Fishy Mystery by Kate Read, published by Two Hoots

There’s something scary on the sea bed…isn’t there?!

What begins as a harmless bit of fun soon sees ocean creatures of all kinds and colours swept away with the fast-spreading rumour of something terrible! Luckily they find refuge in a deep, dark cave…

Can the fish who started it all also save the day?!

This is one of those brilliant books which is enjoyable on so many levels and therefore appealing to a wide range of readers and ages; for the very youngest readers there’s simple colour names and the fun of shouting “BOO!” at the top of your voice!

On a slightly deeper level, there’s the questions the book asks about fake news, rumour mills and mass-hysteria; about the dangers of unquestioningly following the crowd.

And there’s also the clever way the words and pictures work together, with the creature’s expressions telling as much of the story as the bubbles of scared speech do!

There is movement, expression and energy in every spread with fabulous alliterative phrases and plenty of humour – that ‘cave’, little pink fish’s blissfully ignorant game of hide and seek, the mayhem created by something so small…

This is my favourite spread from the book – a riotous rainbow of beautiful colours, it’s a textured, expressive and bold sealife snapshot!

And the colours of the book, like the numbers and counting in One Fox, thread through the story with different coloured creatures on each page.

But it’s not just colour names and sorting, as with the story itself there’s plenty of ways for children of all ages to engage artistically with the book, thanks in part to the brilliant spread at the back full of information on colours, the colour wheel, complementary colours and colour mixing… and the author’s note detailing her process, which was fascinating to read and could lead to some really wonderful art activities for older children to try.

Peapod loves to explore the way colours change and mix as he paints! We never set out ‘to mix colours’ or do anything formal, but he loves to ask “what will this make?” or “what will happen if I put…?” and I just talk it through as he tries it all out (usually resulting in a very heavily layered page of brown, but it’s all about the process!)

I set up some similar colour mixing activities as part of this book. I found the first on ‘Busy Toddler’ as an Easter activity but we’d still not tried it, so this was a good chance to give it a go – food colouring under bicarb of soda then drop coloured vinegar on to create a foamy colour mix experiment! (this was also ace for hsbd eye coordination and fine motor skills as Peapod practiced using the droppers!)

After we’d finished with run out of the bicarb, I just put various pots, jugs and containers out with different coloured water in (just diluted food dye again) and he spent a good hour or more potion making (this was also great for language and imagination – the ingredients, descriptions and ideas he came up with were fab!)

We’re planning to make some tissue-paper collage fish at some point too, with the overlapping squares of tissue paper creating different shades and colours!

Older children could try making scenes of one colour, a shoal of different shades by adding white or black to a base colour or try making fishy collages as described at the back – experiment with layout and colour combinations by cutting fish out of coloured (or painted paper) – which colours look most striking or most subdued together etc. They could also try some observational drawings using documentaries or museums like the book’s creator!

Younger children could go on colour hints, sort objects based on colour or colour by numbers!

There really is so much to get out of this book artistically and creatively for children, but it’s also just a fantastic, funny story with vibrant, energetic illustrations to bring it to life! Love it!

Have you read this? Does your little one like to mix colours?