Gentle Giant Octopus (Read and Wonder) - Hardcover

Wallace, Karen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 076360318X ISBN 13: 9780763603182

Publisher: Candlewick, 1998

Synopsis

Deep-sea discovery awaits readers as they follow a octopus on her daily journey as she squirts ink to defend herself from wolf eels, and lays eggs in a protected, well-hidden den at the bottom of the ocean.

About this title

About the Author:

Karen Wallace was born in Canada, and grew up in a log cabin in Quebec. Her childhood was spent playing in the forests and messing about on the Gatineau River, which in many ways is the source of all her writing. Her books include Bears in the Forest (9780744562729) and Think of an Eel (9781406312027). Mike Bostock was born in Bristol and studied illustration at Bath Academy of Art. His favourite place to read stories is in a deckchair in the garden or on a comfy sofa. He lives in London.

From Publishers Weekly:

The Giant octopus's tentacles can grow to 150 feet, but in this graceful work the deep-sea creature seems tender and vulnerable. Wallace (previously paired with Bostock for Think of an Eel) uses two types of narrative. Facts are set in wavy lines of text, running concurrently with a story about a mother octopus's gestation, parturition and death. The story brims with poetic turns of phrase: a Wolf eel "darts from the shadows. His teeth strike like daggers. He rips off a tentacle. Then sinks like a nightmare deep into his den." The mother octopus defends herself through escape (shooting backward "by sucking in seawater and pumping it out"), camouflage (turning "very pale or very dark within seconds") and hiding ("Octopuses don't have any bones, and they can squeeze through the tiniest of holes"). Safe in her den, she lays eggs that "hang from the roof like grapes on a string." Bostock's thoughtfully composed watercolors are tactile, accurate and extremely attractive: rubbery tentacles undulate or creep on powerful suction cups; bubble-like babies swim up from their rock-bound nursery, out of which the mother's listless eye peers?their nursery will become her crypt. This seamless weave of text and illustration offers a welcome counterpoint to popular depictions (e.g., Verne's and others) of the octopus as deep-sea villain. Ages 5-8.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Candlewick
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 076360318X
• ISBN 13: 9780763603182
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Bostock Mike