"On a deep-blue background, the words `blue sea' appear...and then the first of Crews's eye-filling paintings....The author and illustrator of Rain have invented another winner."—Publishers Weekly.
This was a great way for my kids to learn size comparisons. They were engaged throughout the entire book and thought it was funny when the holes were too small for the larger fish to get through.
Very simple graphics, very simple text. I thought it might be hard for the babies to follow the story and I'm not sure they did but they just stared at me through the whole thing! Outside of a little voice change for the size of the fish it seemed boring to me, but they were engrossed. Go figure. I used it for narrative skills and retold it with a flannelboard.
This spare book is bright, colorful, and fun. It is perfect for read-alouds for children 2 and up, who can get the humor of it. My daughters love it and I love looking at because the colors are so hypnotic.
Loads of repetition about a little fish, big fish, bigger fish, and biggest fish as one tries to eat the other. In the chase, they pass through a small hole, then a smaller hole, and finally the smallest hole. This is a patterned story perfect for beginning ELLs.
Great book that introduces differences and many concepts in just a few short pages. Text is very minimal and the pictures are stark and contrast well. Great for baby storytimes.
We read this classic yesterday, and it became an instant hit. It’s probably my two year old’s first introduction to the big-bigger-biggest style of superlatives. He reached into his own vocabulary and used “more big”. But quickly saw how bigger and biggest add more nuance. The fishies bumping their head on the small holes - Ouch! - was mildly upsetting, but he quickly realized they could just turn around and free themselves out of the hole.
We read it over and over again. Swim little fishy!
Concept book: little/big/bigger/biggest; small/smaller/smallest. They go from tiniest fish to largest and back down again into increasingly smaller holes that the larger fishes can't enter until it ends again with little fish. ILLUSTRATED BY DONALD CREWS. For a very young infant/toddler audience.
I wasn’t very engaged in this book at all, however, the two first graders who were reading it couldn’t get enough. They asked to read it again and again.
In the blue sea there is a little fish. The reader follows the journey of that little fish as bigger, then bigger, fish follow. This is a fun, subtle lesson in colour, adding, subtracting, and humour.