The Fish Who Cried Wolf

Although their title implies an aquatic variation of the Aesop fable, Donaldson and Scheffler (creators of "The Gruffalo") turn out a different animal altogether. True, diminutive Tiddler is given to tall tales (Sorry I'm late... on the way to school I was captured by a squid). But while no one believes them, his stories save his life when he gets lost: a frightened Tiddler discovers that creatures have been passing on his improbable stories to one another in a kind of chainand if he follows that chain in reverse, he'll end up right back home. Donaldson's rhyming text is crisp and clean, leaving plenty of metaphorical room for Scheffler's expansively imagined art. Always gifted at conjuring up entire worlds (even his spot illustrations feel animated and lovingly detailed), he creates an ocean effervescent with texture, color and vividly expressive personalities. And Tiddler is an excellent reader surrogate: spunky, wide-eyed and ultimately triumphant. Ages 35. "(May)" Copyright 2008 Publishers Weekly Used with permission.

K-Gr 3Tiddler is a tiny fish with a propensity for tall tales. Habitually late for school, he offers a different excuse each day. He's been riding a seahorse, got trapped in a treasure chest, was captured by a squid, etc. The other students discount his stories, but Little Johnny Dory loves them and passes them on to his grandmother, who tells a crab, who tells a plaice, and so on. When Tiddler's daydreaming lands him far from home, it is the retracing of the trail of his own stories that leads him back again. The rhyme scheme here isn't precise, but it is reader-friendly, and invites participation: "'Sorry I'm late, Miss. I set off really early, /but on the way to school I was captured by a squid./I wriggled and I struggled till a turtle came and rescued me.'/'Oh no he didn't.' 'OH YES HE DID.'" The title here is a bit misleading as Tiddler doesn't tell his tales to mislead anyone deliberately, as in the original fable. Instead, he resembles Dr. Seuss's Marco from "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street" (Random, 1989), whose imagination is similarly bursting at the seams. The colorful, detailed illustrations feature an endearing cast of undersea denizens with the text woven through on clean white space. This would be an engaging book to share when stories have an underwater theme or when discussing how tales proliferate."Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ" Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Praise for The Fish Who Cried Wolf
"A charmingly illustrated story about a plain gray fish who 'blew small bubbles' but 'told tall tales..." Donaldson's gently paced cautionary tale is populated by Scheffler's comical undersea creatures... and the effect is always amusing." — New York Times Book Review
"Donaldson's rhyming text is crisp and clean, leaving plenty of metaphorical room for Scheffler's expansively imagined art. Always gifted at conjuring up entire worlds (even his spot illustrations feel animated and lovingly detailed), he creates an ocean effervescent with texture, color and vividly expressive personalities. And Tiddler is an excellent reader surrogate: spunky, wide-eyed and ultimately triumphant." — Publishers Weekly
"The colorful, detailed illustrations feature an endearing cast of undersea denizens with the text woven through on clean white space... An engaging book to share." — School Library Journal