Just So Stories

Exisle Publishing

August 2023

ISBN: 9781922539557

Imprint: EK Books

RRP: $24.99

After a slow delivery to get this one, what an absolute joy it is to finally see it. As you might imagine with us living by the ocean, and with The Kid spending many weekends in the surf, we are pretty keenly interested in marine creatures. And, surely, octopuses are one of the most fascinating with their sinously elegant movements and their undeniably, highly refined intelligence, not that we see many here (although we have seen blue-ringed octopuses in the rocky shallows – an extremely good reason to NOT wade barefoot in such places).

Young readers will thoroughly enjoy this literary guessing game watching the various impersonations in the mimic octopus‘ repertoire. This tricky little creature was only quite recently discovered (1998) so information is still being collected but it is proving to be a very versatile actor.

While octopuses in general are adept at camouflage, being able to change both colour and texture of their skin, this is the first to be observed actually transforming its shape and behaviour to imitate other creatures.

Among its accomplished masquerades are flounder, sea snakes, lionfish, as well as possible others still being investigated. And it would appear that it mimics the natural predator of whatever is a potential predatory threat to itself – awesome, right?!

Sandra’s text is just delightful, and both adults and children will revel in the use of imagery, alliteration and assonance, and the astonishingly beautiful illustrations are so evocative that any reader will easily imagine themselves as a diver swimming alongside this talented performer. And you know my regular ‘thing’ – I LOVE these endpapers with the opening of the many creatures illustrated throughout, and the closing a sumptuous double spread of Mim in all her glory.

Any class that is undertaking a unit of work on the ocean and its inhabitants will gladly welcome this addition, but even without that, this makes a wonderful shared read aloud which could be followed up by numerous beginning research tasks, art activities or creative writing. The teaching notes are a very welcome addition.

Certainly, in my local schools where the children are very actively taught, and aware of the importance of caring for our oceans and the inhabitants, this will be a huge hit. Beautifully executed and totally fascinating, I highly recommend this to you for readers from Prep upwards.