One Lonely Seahorse - Hardcover

Elffers, Joost; Freymann, Saxton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0439110149 ISBN 13: 9780439110143

Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2000

Synopsis

In a counting book by the creators of How Are You Peeling? where everything is sculpted from food, one lonely sea horse learns that she has a lot of friends--friends she can really "count" on.

About this title

Review:

Fruits and vegetables speak louder than words, and Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers (Play with Your Food, How Are You Peeling?) sure know how to tell a tale with produce. Bea--a lonely sea horse made out of Chioggia beets--is the star of this extraordinary counting book. (We know she's made of beets because the endpapers identify all the produce used in the lovely underwater seascapes--from cantaloupes to enoki mushrooms.) We know Bea is lonely, too, because sea horses just don't get any lonelier than this:

Beneath the ocean, deep and wide,
One lonely, drifting sea horse cried,
"In all the cold and salty sea
I'm all alone--there's only me."

Fortunately, other sea creatures are eager to befriend her--two small mushroom crabs, three horned melon puffer fish, four ginger lobsters (we never knew fresh ginger looked exactly like lobsters), five pineapple turtles, six banana dolphins, seven cranberry-bean eels, eight banana-peel octopi, nine Asian eggplant mackerel, and ten bell-pepper angelfish. By the end of the book, Bea is surrounded by her colorful new friends in a glorious undersea cornucopia: "'You are my friends,' said Bea, 'that's true, / And I can always count on you!'" We can honestly say there is not a child or adult alive who could resist the charms of this visually breathtaking book, carefully composed and crisply photographed. Chefs, marine biologists, kids, rejoice! One Lonely Sea Horse is a fabulous tribute to food, figures, photography, and friendship. (Toddler to adult) --Karin Snelson

About the Author:

In the fertile mind of artist/sculptor Saxton Freymann, a cauliflower is a poodle, an artichoke is a wolf, a banana is an octopus, and a pumpkin is just about anything. Fruits and veggies - meticulously carved, then photographed - are his special gift to the bountiful world of children's literature. "What's great about food," he says, "is that it keeps all of the photos fun." Freymann lives in New York City with his wife and three children, all of whom are very healthy, he says, because they eat the cast of characters he works on. For more information about Saxton Freymann, visit: scholastic.com/tradebooks Born in The Netherlands to artist parents, Joost turned his creative energy to food in 1976, when he became fascinated with the garnishes used by Japanese sushi chefs. The result was Play With Your Food, his first collaboration with Saxton Freymann, and a bestseller for the whole family. Joost believes that if you can open children's eyes and thinking with things they can understand and duplicate - like food creations - a new range of creativity opens up. "Then," he says, "you can take them to a museum."

About this edition

• Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0439110149
• ISBN 13: 9780439110143
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 28