One Lonely Sea Horse

Fantastic food sculptures tell the tale of a lonely seahorse whose friends arrive in progessively larger groups, proving with humor and flair that they can be counted on!

Fruits and vegetables speak louder than words, and Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers (Play with Your Food, How Are You Peeling?) sure know how to tell a tale with produce. Bea--a lonely sea horse made out of Chioggia beets--is the star of this extraordinary counting book. (We know she's made of beets because the endpapers identify all the produce used in the lovely underwater seascapes--from cantaloupes to enoki mushrooms.) We know Bea is lonely, too, because sea horses just don't get any lonelier than this:

Beneath the ocean, deep and wide,
One lonely, drifting sea horse cried,
"In all the cold and salty sea
I'm all alone--there's only me."

Fortunately, other sea creatures are eager to befriend her--two small mushroom crabs, three horned melon puffer fish, four ginger lobsters (we never knew fresh ginger looked exactly like lobsters), five pineapple turtles, six banana dolphins, seven cranberry-bean eels, eight banana-peel octopi, nine Asian eggplant mackerel, and ten bell-pepper angelfish. By the end of the book, Bea is surrounded by her colorful new friends in a glorious undersea cornucopia: "'You are my friends,' said Bea, 'that's true, / And I can always count on you!'" We can honestly say there is not a child or adult alive who could resist the charms of this visually breathtaking book, carefully composed and crisply photographed. Chefs, marine biologists, kids, rejoice! One Lonely Sea Horse is a fabulous tribute to food, figures, photography, and friendship. (Toddler to adult) --Karin Snelson