Don't Trust Fish

by Neil Sharpson, Dan Santat (Illustrator)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

At long last, the treachery of fish has been immortalized on the page with this hilarious manifesto. It's also quite educational, and not just regarding the treachery of fish, but about their other qualities too.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER• An absurdly laugh-out-loud funny picture book about the villainy of fish, illustrated by National Book Award-winning creator Dan Santat

"A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on." —Kirkus, starred review

Why, dear reader, must you NEVER EVER trust fish?

1) They spend all their time in the water where we can’t see them.
2) Some are as big as a bus—that is not okay.
3) We don't know what they're teaching in their "schools."
4) They are likely plotting our doom.

This nature-guide-gone-wrong is a hilarious, off-the-rails exploration of the seemingly innocent animals that live in the water.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593616673
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	04/08/2025
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	AD470L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

Neil Sharpson lives in Dublin with his wife and their two children. Having written for theater since his teens, Neil transitioned to writing novels in 2017, adapting his play The Caspian Sea into When The Sparrow Falls. A huge fan of animation, Neil writes Unshaved Mouse, a comedic review blog mostly focusing on animated film and comic book movies.

Dan Santat is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of over a hundred books, including the National Book Award winning graphic memoir A First Time for Everything. His picture book The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend received the Caldecott Medal. He also illustrated The Blur, Lift, and Drawn Together, both written by Minh Lê, which received critical acclaim. Dan is also the creator of the Disney animated hit The Replacements. He lives in Southern California with his family.

Editorial Reviews

★ "[A] rapid-fire comedy of piscine paranoia." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

★ "A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on." —Kirkus, starred review

★ "With exceptional timing in a dry comic voice, veteran playwright and novelist Sharpson's picture-book debut is immersively silly fun, while award winner Santat's always-superb art lands at every possible visual punch line." —Booklist, starred review

★ “Sharpson and Santat's co-creation is a symbiotic marvel.” —Shelf Awareness, starred review

★ “Wonderfully hilarious…Don’t Trust Fish is an educational and highly entertaining delight, sure to inspire interest in oceanography and ichthyology—and lots of rereads.” —BookPage, starred review

★ "A must for every library. It is accessible to young and old, wildly entertaining, and effortlessly instructive."—School Library Journal, starred review

“Consider a book that makes everybody, and I do mean everybody, laugh from the cover onwards. THAT, my friends, is a picture book worth celebrating! That is a rarity! That… is Don’t Trust Fish.” —Betsy Bird, Fuse #8, School Library Journal

“Starting from an already comedic premise, this story goes gleefully off the rails, moving from funny to absolutely and wonderfully absurd, helped along by illustrations that build on jokes in previous spreads.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

From the Publisher

Author Neil Sharpson narrates his first picture book, an apparent nonfiction work about animal classes. There's a curious undercurrent of edginess that Sharpson strengthens into a predominant tone with the repeated refrain: "Don't trust fish." Not only do fish defy categorization, they eat "poor innocent crabs who are just trying to have a nice time in the sea." This is only one of the clues to the identity of the unidentified storyteller. Fabulous detours allow Sharpson to deliver pirate speak, fishy baby talk, ferocious and funny conspiracy theories, and storytelling that fills in for Dan Santat's illustrations. Sharpson's audio clues are subtle, silly, and sure to suck in listeners. The production has a second story for listeners who are turning pages with their "weird fleshy human fingers." S.W. © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine

MAY 2025 - AudioFile

★ 2025-01-18
Sharpson offers so-fish-ticated readers a heads up about the true terror of the seas.

The title says it all. Our unseen narrator is just fine with other animals: mammals. Reptiles. Even birds. But fish? Don’t trust them! First off, the rules always seem to change with fish. Some live in fresh water; some reside in salt water. Some have gills, while others have lungs. You can never see what they’re up to, since they hang out underwater, and they’re always eating those poor, innocent crabs. Soon, the narrator introduces readers to Jeff, a vacant-eyed yellow fish—but don’t be fooled! Jeff’s “the craftiest fish of all.” All fish are, apparently, hellbent on world domination, the narrator warns. “DON’T TRUST FISH!” Finally, at the tail end, we get a sly glimpse of our unreliable narrator. Readers needn’t be ichthyologists to appreciate Sharpson’s meticulous comic timing. (“Ships always sink at sea. They never sink on land. Isn’t that strange?”) His delightful text, filled to the brim with jokes that read aloud brilliantly, pairs perfectly with Santat’s art, which shifts between extreme realism and goofy hilarity. He also fills the book with his own clever gags (such as an image ofGilligan’s Island’s S.S.Minnow going down and a bottle of sauce labeled “Surly Chik’n Srir’racha’r”).

A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on.(Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews