29 September 2013 SEE WHAT A SEAL CAN DO by Chris Butterworth and Kate Nelms, ill., Candlewick, August 2013, 32p., ISBN: 978-0-7636-6574-6 

"The seals on the bus go

'errp, errp errp'

'errp, errp errp'

'errp, errp errp'

The seals on the bus go

'errp, errp errp'

All around the town"

-- from THE SEALS ON THE BUS by Lenny Hort and G. Brian Karas (2000)

"Splash!

"A big breath out and down he goes.  His body's just  the right shape to shoot through the water: sleek, smooth, and pointed at both ends.  His back flippers power him one hundred feet down in seconds. 

"Seal slips through the seaweed forest -- big eyes searching the gloom.  His sharp ears hear dolphins whistle and a ferrryboat's engine chugging. 

"Seal's not the only hungry one down here: bigger things than him are looking for their supper.  His long whiskers are his feelers: they twitch as a silent swirl of water tells him there's a killer whale on the hunt for a plump seal meal.  With a flick and a twist of his flippers, he dives deeper. 

"Two hundred feet down, and it's colder, but Seal doesn't mind.  He has two fur coats that keep him waterproof, and a thick layer of fat under his skin wraps around him like a blanket.  Inside his blubber, Seal's as warm as you and me!

"Three hundred feet down now, and his heart gets slower...and slower...until it only beats four times a minute."

There is so much great information packed into the spare text of SEE WHAT A SEAL CAN DO -- both the narrative about the gray seal we follow here, and the accompanying fact blurbs (that are set in a smaller type). 

I don't know whether it is that seals just look like dogs to me, or whether having, as a young man, often watched my mom's flat-coated retriever swimming around in the Bay and seen a real resemblance to seals, but I've always had an affinity for the big-eyed seals I encounter here basking along the California coast.

SEE WHAT A SEAL CAN DO begins and ends with beautiful endpapers that feature two-tone renderings of the eighteen different kinds of true seals.  (A note opposite the title page provides a brief introduction and explains "true" seals.)  The story's mixed media illustrations draw you down through the ocean deep, and the sweet face and expressive eyes of our main character really grab us.

"So if you're down by the sea one day, you might spot a seal, lying around like a fat sunbather.  And you might think he's just a slow, dozy creature that spends his time lazing around...but you'd be wrong.  Seal can dive like a rocket and twist like a dancer -- he's a super-swimming underwater wonder."

Errp!  I really enjoyed this one. 

Richie Partington, MLIS
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