Boo!: A Fishy Mystery

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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! 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 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!

This is my favourite spread from the book – a riotous rainbow of beautiful colours, it’s a textured, expressive and bold sealife snapshot! 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! 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.I love this post Rachael, the book sounds fabulous and your little Peapod is a lucky little boy being encouraged to be so creative.

Kate Read's stunning illustrations are as rich and bright as an aquarium of tropical fish and readers will love following the trail of colourful creatures through to the surprise ending.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! They could also try some observational drawings using documentaries or museums like the book’s creator! 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!