Just So Stories

Penguin Australia

April 2025

• ISBN: 9781761351082
• Imprint: Penguin
• RRP: $19.99

What happens when you blend non-fiction with narrative with absurdist humour? In this instance, you get Don’t Trust Fish – which is a book that will make all kiddos and adults alike laugh out loud because of the sheer anarchic ridiculousness of it all. It is SO my kind of book!

While it starts off in an astonishingly innocuous and normal narrative-nonfiction kind of way, it soon turns to bonkers advice about the deviousness and underhandness – sorry, underfin-ness – of fish.

It advises the reader how completely untrustworthy fish are because, clearly, any creature that does not follow a schema of physiological/anatomical conformities must be EVIL and full of wicked intentions.

Fish have gills – except when they don’t.

Fish live in salt water – except when they don’t.

Fish lay eggs – except when they don’t.

You begin to see the tangled web of deception that fish have been laying out for millenia. We would all be well advised to keep well clear of the little villains. Any wonder I don’t swim in the ocean? Leave that for the reckless surfers like The Kid aka Fish and Mr Surfer, I say!

This is a debut picture book from this creator and I sure hope there’s more up his sleeve because this had me in fits of giggles. And the equally hilarious illos from Caldecott awardee, Dan Santat fit perfectly. It will do the same for your kiddos from around the age of 4 upwards. There are always plenty of fish in the sea, they say – just don’t trust ANY of them! Indubitably it’s a be wary 5 🐟🦈🐠🐡☠️ rating!

Why, dear reader, must you NEVER EVER trust fish?

1) They spend all their time in the water where we can’t see them.
2) Some are as big as a bus—that is not okay.
3) We don’t know what they’re teaching in their “schools.”
4) They are likely plotting our doom.