This easy, informational comedian begins the story on the endpages, with a small pink crab tumbling into the ocean. It falls on a small larva, who introduces itself. The larva is in search of a house and the crab is able to get out of the boring bay – however agrees to point out the larva round first. They meet kelp, anemones, and extra inhabitants of the bay and at last develop into associates in addition to determining the larva’s id.

The plot is a little bit weak —Crab by no means actually explains why it desires to go away and the “story” is usually simply there as a placeholder to maneuver the characters across the bay and meet completely different creatures. Nonetheless, with a youthful viewers that is positive and it’s a pleasant approach to introduce the completely different inhabitants, which is the true level of the e book. The brief chapters, crammed with puns and foolish jokes, are divided by longer explanations of the completely different sea creatures the 2 meet and generally by interludes of puns, like a sequence of thumbnails of seagulls (one is a “trian-gull).

Info is included each within the normal story, as when the 2 meet a gaggle of mussels who clarify that they’re sessile, or when a sea urchin, sea cucumber, and sea star begin an argument concerning the relative deserves of their digestive methods, and in informational sections, narrated by the crab, which give extra detailed details about habits and habits.

Curll’s artwork fashion may be very cute, with plenty of blues and greens, picked out with brighter pinks and oranges. A red-lipped clam waxes philosophical about being the measure of happiness, with dramatic adjustments in its cartoon eyes. Kelp strands, some carrying old style glasses, gossips about their fuel bladders and pokes the toes of littering people. Two teams of opposing anemones, one orange, one yellow, wave their tentacles and zap one another and every little thing passing by, resulting in a blue web page with the heading “Pardon the interruption. We’re experiencing tentacle difficulties.”

The ultimate finish pages present the crab passing readers on to the following habitat exploration, a fern forest with their information, Fern.
Curll has a enjoyable, squiggly fashion that matches effectively along with her pun-filled textual content. Younger readers will get pleasure from exploring the underwater world with crab and larva, painlessly studying concerning the completely different underwater inhabitants, and guffawing on the puns and wordplay. A powerful alternative for elementary faculty libraries and public libraries that serve this age group, with particular curiosity for these situated within the Pacific northwest.

Barnacle Bay
By Jana Curll
Greystone Books, 2025
ISBN: 9781778401022

NFNT Age Suggestion: Simple Readers (5-9)