Whale Shines: An Artistic Tale

by Fiona Robinson

Overview

All day, Whale swims through the ocean, wearing a poster advertising the big upcoming art exhibition. He visits the eel who wriggles abstract patterns in the sand, the squid who paints with ink, and the hammerhead shark who builds sculptures from salvage. Whale sees his friends’ confidence and creativity and wishes he could be an artist too, but he doesn’t know what to make and insists he’s too ungainly to create art. Then one day, with the unexpected help of some bioluminescent plankton, he discovers his own distinct point of view and talent. From the award-winning author-illustrator of What Animals Really Like, hailed by School Library Journal as “sublime silliness,” comes another inspiring tale about defying expectation and finding the artist within.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781613125229
Publisher:	Abrams, Harry N., Inc.
Publication date:	11/05/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Lexile:	AD460L (what's this?)
File size:	53 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Fiona Robinson is the author-illustrator of What Animals Really Like, The Useful Moose: A Truthful, Moose-full Tale, and The 3-2-3 Detective Agency. Her work has been honored by the Royal Academy of Arts and has been featured in many gallery shows. She lives with her family in Brooklyn.

Date of Birth:

May 19, 1976

Editorial Reviews

2013-10-01
In a calm and color-shifting ocean, a whale becomes an artist. At first, the sea looks almost empty, made of soft, horizontal stripes in greens and blues. A whale arrives, wearing a poster: "Call for entries! The hugest art show in the deep and briny. Curated by Mr. Jackson Pollock." A wrasse creates living sculpture with coral; a shark drapes fishing floats over an anchor. Whale sulks ("I wish I could make something too, but I'm just in advertising") until encouragement arrives from an unlikely source. Some plankton pipe up with support, undeterred by Whale's biologically sensible threat--"go away before I eat you!" Grumpy Whale swims away, inadvertently lighting up the plankton, who are bioluminescent; they glow when his tail swishes them. Now Whale has a medium; what's his subject? Bursting through the ocean's surface for air, he observes something his friends only ever see "through a dulling veil of water": the sky. His undersea plankton painting will be Starry Night (à la Van Gogh). Robinson's placid watercolor ocean alters shade on every page and horizontal panel, employing myriad blues and greens; her sharp contrasts between light and dark are beautiful. Her pencil drawings are friendly, though the octopus and squid are somewhat stuffed animal–like. At this art show in the deep, the deepest aspect is the conveyance of celestial views to an underwater audience. (Picture book. 3-7)

Kirkus Reviews