Giant Squid by Candace Fleming

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Reviewed by: Giant Squid by Candace Fleming Elizabeth Bush Fleming, Candace Giant Squid; illus. by Eric Rohmann. Porter/Roaring Brook, 2016 [40p] ISBN 978-1-59643-599-5 $18.99 Reviewed from galleys R 5-8 yrs Now that children’s literature has shifted fairly decisively from fearing sharks to understanding them, there’s an opening for a new Horrible Predator of the Sea. Fleming’s worthy candidate, the giant squid, is all the scarier for lack of scientific information about its behavior, and there’s plenty of nightmare-inducing possibilities to extrapolate from the known facts. Tentacles and arms writhe upward into the murky background of the first pages while “deep in the cold, cold dark, creatures, strange and fearsome, lurk.” Those tentacles quickly get right to work: “They surround their thrashing meal. They latch on with powerful sucker-studded clubs.” Then there are the “saw-like teeth,” the “slithering arms,” the “terrifying tongue.” Tiny squid hatch from eggs and squirt ink to evade a barracuda (just as a grown squid in an earlier spread evaded a sperm whale . . . this time), then there’s a foldout of an enormous squid, and then “It’s gone.” While there’s a paucity of fact about the giant squid that limits the information, the book treats the mystery itself as part of the fun. An appended diagram labels and explains some of the features that appear piecemeal in Rohmann’s luscious, mysterious underwater scenes, but the head itself is not labeled, and the flaps that aid its propulsion are not indicated. Some of the confusion in terms of size—the discussion of two-inch hatchlings is accompanied by pictures of longer squid—is clarified in the author’s endnote, as Fleming explains how few confirmed sightings there have been of live giant squid, and that much of what is known comes from squid parts that have washed ashore or have been retrieved from the stomachs of sperm whale predators. And come to [End Page 22] think of it, that’s pretty creepy too. A bibliography and lists of online resources and children’s books are included. Copyright © 2016 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois