Little Fish, Lost

by Nancy Van Laan

Young children are invited to help Little Fish, who is searching for his mother, examine page after page of a busy underwater story, in which the missing mother can be found hiding on every spread. Reprint.

Genres: Picture Books, Storytime, Juvenile

30 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1998

About the author

Nancy Van Laan was born in Baton Rouge, La. Her father was a colonel in the US Air Force, and the family moved frequently as Van Laan was growing up. She began making up stories to pass the time on long car trips. Although Van Laan had a learning disability, she loved to read. She began drawing and writing poetry as a child and enjoyed illustrating her own stories. Van Laan also loved ballet and began taking lessons at the age of nine. By age seventeen, she had her own ballet company in Birmingham that performed on a weekly program broadcast on Alabama Educational TV (now Alabama Public Television). Van Laan’s dancing career ended after an injury she sustained as a student at Sullins College in Bristol, Va. After completing her AA degree at Sullins, she enrolled at the University of Alabama, earning her BA in radio and television in 1961.

Van Laan moved to New York after college. She worked briefly at an advertising company and then joined ABC-TV where she worked as a network censor from 1962 to 1966. Van Laan began writing at this time and also studied art. After her first two children were born, she resigned from ABC and began painting professionally, creating murals for schools and private clients. She earned an MFA in theater from Rutgers University in 1979 and wrote two plays which were performed regionally. Van Laan moved to eastern Pennsylvania where she taught English at a private boarding school from 1984 to 1989. She also taught creative writing at Rutgers from 1986 to 1989. Van Laan published her first book, The Big Fat Worm, in 1987. Two years later, she left teaching to write full time. Since then, Van Laan has published over two dozen books. One of these, Rainbow Crow, was featured on the PBS television series Reading Rainbow. Van Laan lives and writes in Doylestown, Pa.

Reviews

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this book is 20 years old, it still works for story time. This morning, I read it to a group of preschoolers and their siblings, parents, & caregivers, and I think the whole room FELT it.

I changed the text, though! Instead of saying, "Little Fish lost his mother...Where was she?" I said, "Little Fish lost his parents...Where were they?"

I do not think this is absolutely necessary, it is not a biased or stereotyped presentation - but I would like to be inclusive of all people, and get the audience more & more used to the idea that parents, no matter what gender they may be, love and care for their children.

I picked it from my storytime collection because I was doing my annual "fishes" theme - a favorite of mine! - and it's a book I like because it has a strong emotional resonance with minimal text, it has bright colors with a friendly, warm appearance, and it uses a sophisticated set of examples of other animal parents. (In fact, in the 15+ years I've been reading it, I think I've succeeded in answering a handful of word puzzles because *this* book taught me the word "genet.")

This morning, a small group of 3- & 4-year-olds were uncommonly chatty and wiggly, and yet, from the very first page of this book, they held still and were raptly attentive - their empathetic connection to the little, lost fish who is separated from his parents was immediate and powerful enough to make them forget other issues. What did he do? What did he see? Who helped him? Who scared him? Would he get caught & eaten, all alone, without help or protection from his parents?

It is not a complex book, and it has an unusual lopsided repetition that can take on different tones if you choose to emphasize either the question or the repetition. (For example; "Little fish missed his mother. Where was she? Where was she? Little fish needed his mother, yes he did." - you must choose if/how to alter your voice to read the repeated question.)

Anyway - I wanted to put it on here, because it really STRUCK ME today that children as young as 3 years old can clearly empathize with the trauma of another creature/person/being who is separated from his/her caregiver, and it is a powerful, universal feeling of empathy. We children's librarians know it, but how can we as a society keep that feeling alive in people as they grow up to be adults? An adult who feels this story or even witnesses children feeling this story would always work for the health and happiness and cohesion of families and refuse to cooperate when their supervisors or even their president tells them to cause trauma to children.

[Celine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loved the illustrations but not the text.

[Lynn Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very brightly illustrated, this story is about a little fish searching for its mother and finding many mothers and babies along the way - while not seeing his own nearby.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little fish is lost and wants to find his mother. When he becomes lost, he finds lots of other animals who are with their mothers and lille fish becomes even more sad. Finally, the two are reunited!


Used for "Fish-A-Mania" Storytime-July, 2010.

[Darlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this to Giselle and was a little boring for her the first time around, then I realized she was supposed to be looking for the mom in each of page. It was really cute and she loved it the second time around.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book makes for a great read aloud--the pictures are colorful and "splashy" :) and the verse invites the readers to answer questions. Baby fish is looking for her mom--very sweet and a familiar situation for the younger set!

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad but not a favorite either.