Today is the most stupendous day –
the highlight of the year …
The Festival of Fish! Hooray!
Let everybody cheer.
The fish are having so much fun. There are the perch playing hide-and-seek and a sturgeon singing a song. But there are ‘two beady eyes following the fun and games’. The eyes belong to blobfish. He has the saddest face. Whatever could be the matter?
The fish gather round to try and cheer him up. The clownfish tells some jokes, the sawfish does some magic tricks and even saws an eel into two, no, six pieces. ‘The crowd goes wild!’ But blobfish remains the same. He looks glum and still.
Next comes dolphin squealing and clicking but all to no avail. They have to call in the boss. The great white shark explains to them that blobfish is from far below on the ocean floor where it is ‘deep and cold and dark’.
This is where the water weighs a ton and squeezes you and crushes you. While the fish’s hearts are kind, Blobfish would remain glum.
As they swim away Blobfish looks on waiting for night-time to fall. This is when he heads down, down, back to his home. As he does so, the pressure begins to squeeze and push against him. He begins to change shape.
Now see the blobfish! SEE HIS FACE!
Oh, wouldn’t those fish gape!
Cheer Up, Blobfish! is such a bright and fun book but also educational with a page of information in the back that includes how the blobfish was discovered. He might be the ugliest fish in the ocean but down below in his neighbourhood, he looks just as handsome as any other fish!
Reviewed by Emily Ross
Age Guide 3+
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julie Murphy trained as a zoologist and zookeeper, and has been a children’s book author for over 20 years. Why does she write? Because she loves it, and hope that it helps children to connect with reading and nature. What does she write about? Mostly her main interests – animals and the environment.
She hopes her books will inspire young readers to be curious about nature, and to go out and experience nature for themselves – even a park or back yard will do! Ideally, kids will also be encouraged to become lifelong readers and conservation stewards.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Rachel Tribout is based in Australia, between Hobart in Tasmania and Brisbane in Queensland.
her story starts in a small village in the French countryside. She grew up riding her bicycle in the woods around our town, searching for the monsters and magical creatures that existed in her imagination. She’d often get distracted observing the ant-colonies at war in her backyard or making friends with the local snails; they were convinced that all she wanted to do was to eat them.
She found a love for drawing on her adventures. She wanted to capture the magic that she found in nature and the imaginings of her dreams. It was a way for her to connect and communicate with like-minded people. That’s still as true today as it was then.
Rachel studied illustration at Emile Cohl Art School in Lyon and visual communication at Cours Bessil, Montpellier before packing her bags to travel the world in 2005.
The creative process and communicating through illustration and design, fill her with purpose, and she’s spent every day since learning her craft. She’s travelled the world and enjoyed some fantastic adventures, learning to observe, think, design and create, and develop her unique visual storytelling approach.
Visit Rachel Tribout’s website
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