The Hungriest Mouth in the Sea

August 31, 2015
Newcomer Walters uses a question-and-answer setup as he invites readers to find the hungriest animal off the coast of New Zealand: “Perhaps it’s a seahorse with a pot-belly,/ or the trailing tentacles of a moon jelly?/ No, no, no, it’s nothing like that./ It’s someone else in this habitat.” A mix of leathery, corrugated, and crinkled-paper textures add eye-catching dimension to Walters’s vibrant paper collages, which do an impressive job of capturing the details of swimming petrel birds, rosy-pink squid, and other animals. The verse can be clunky at times (“Rising from the deep, a swarm of kicking krill/ moves as one with unquestionable skill”), but Walter’s use of repetition and the book’s guessing-game aspect provide readaloud appeal. Ages 4–8.