Mister Seahorse: Carle Does It Again!

Eric Carle has always been one of my favorite authors and illustrators. The way he brings together facts about nature with big, bright and beautiful images is truly fascinating. With so much color and detail his books have the power to capture any child's attention. This holds true for his book Mister Seahorse. After writing this book Mister Seahorse, Eric Carle received the Laura Ingalls Wildre Award which is quite an honor.

As I sat down to read about this wonderful journey of a father seahorse I couldn't help but realize how many facts about sea life this book contains. As Mr. Seahorse drifts through the sea taking good care of Mrs. Seahorses eggs, he encounters other sea creatures such as trumpet fish, lionfish, leaf fish, and stonefish hidden in their natural environment. The way that Carle shows some of the fish hiding hiding from Mr. Seahorse is by using a translucent page in between two pages. So when you show children the page with Mr. Seahorse on it they can't really see what the next fish will be, until you turn the transulsent page. I really enjoyed this and think that this is a good way to involve students in the story as well and keep them on their toes and guessing. He also has Mr. Seahorse pass by other father fish that take care of their young eggs as well. These included stickleback, tilapia, kurtus, pipe and bullhead. All the fathers are nervous, but at the same time excited to have all their babies be born. A lot of the time, especially in today's society, women are usually portrayed as the caretakers. But this story challenges that by showing that the father can do just as good of a job. As the story progresses readers see how Mr. Seahorse gets larger and larger until finally at the end the baby seahorses come out and he is a proud father!

This factual, funny story was enjoying to read and the over all message of fatherly devotion to their children is a good one to leave readers with. I could defiantly see myself as a teacher reading this book to my class either during a lesson about under the sea and sea creatures or even a lesson on family roles.