The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau Deborah Stevenson Yaccarino, Dan. The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau. written and illus. by Dan Yaccarino. Knopf, 2009 [32p]. ISBN 978-0-375-85573-3 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 2–4 Following on the damp heels of Berne’s Manfish: The Story of Jacques Cousteau (BCCB 7/08) is this new picture-book biography of the great marine explorer and environmental champion. Yaccarino begins with Cousteau’s youth, explaining his taste for tinkering and early love of the water, and then follows those threads through his career. This isn’t so much an overview of his life (there’s no mention of his wartime experiences, for instance) as a chronicle of his explorations, innovation, and work as a marine ambassador; enumeration of his inventions, such as the Aqualung, the Diving Saucer, and the Sea Flea, and entertaining tidbits about various dives (“A big grouper adopted the crew while they were filming”) add depth to the history. Yaccarino’s simple, straightforward text capably condenses the important [End Page 302] aspects of Cousteau’s life and effectively conveys the man’s love of the oceans and commitment to sharing it; quotes from Cousteau appear in colored medallions and offer a horse’s mouth (seahorse’s mouth?) counterpoint to the third-person narration. The gouache illustrations ingeniously employ an airbrush for much of their paint application, resulting in soft grainy textures with gradations ranging from the crisp to the gentle. The sensibility is strongly graphic and the faces generally rather stylized, so the images are a little low on emotional connection, but they’re dramatic, with the varied layouts and capable compositions balancing the teeming marine life and the strong colors. This would be a useful companion to Cousteau’s film and television work, or it could provide a marine dimension to a unit on explorers. A brief timeline of important events in Cousteau’s life is appended; the bound book will include source notes. Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois