Inky the Octopus: Bound for Glory

by Erin Guendelsberger, David Leonard (Illustrator)

Overview

Perfect for Earth Day, journey along with Inky the octopus as he makes a daring escape from his aquarium to the open sea—based on a real-life aquatic adventure! Published in partnership with the National Aquarium of New Zealand.

Follow Inky the octopus as he escapes from his tank at the National Aquarium of New Zealand to the open ocean! Based on a true story, this ocean picture book for children ages 4-7 chronicles the adventure that the real-life Inky might have taken on his escape to freedom. The best octopus book for kids looking to learn more about aquatic animals, marine biology, and aquariums, this delightful tale about a daring octopus's big dreams makes a wonderful gift for children for back-to-school, holidays, and summer reading!

Bonus educational pages in the back include the real-life stories of Inky and other daring octopuses, as well as fascinating facts about these masters of disguise! Perfect for at-home learning or the classroom!

A Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year (Ages 5-9)

A Florida Sunshine State Young Readers Award Winner

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781492654148
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	04/03/2018
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	225,486
Product dimensions:	10.25(w) x 10.25(h) x 0.33(d)
Age Range:	4 - 10 Years

About the Author

ERIN GUENDELSBERGER is the NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestselling author of LITTLE RED SLEIGH and writes children’s stories and poems. She studied writing at Hamline University and Bowling Green State University and now pursues adventure in Ohio with her husband, daughters, and a cat named Hennimore.

David Leonard began illustrating in the first grade. His goal is to capture a moment in time with gestures, emotions, and paint strokes while reflecting on his own fun, humorous, and whimsical personality. When David is not illustrating, he enjoys feeding his snails and flying with his loving, forgiving, understanding, and supportive wife and their art-directing twin daughters.

Editorial Reviews

"An imagined adventure inspired by real-life escape-artist octopodes... The colors and shapes used to depict the marine life create a great deal of personality and visual interest for the background of the illustrations. Portrayals of Inky’s life in the aquarium make more use of white space while the world outside incorporates more color, with the final pages depicting the open ocean and coral reef proving the most colorful of all. " — School Library Journal

"Inky is a great companion for family trips to the beach or aquarium. In jaunty rhyming verse, Inky relays his tale, which is based on the true story of an octopus that escaped from the National Aquarium in New Zealand in 2016. Inky lives in a "world of see-through walls" and dines like a king on lobster, shrimp and squid, but he yearns to be free in the open sea. The intrepid marine creature squeezes, schemes and slips from his tank and through a tiny drain hole to drop to the ocean below, where he exuberantly exclaims, "I'll follow my heart wherever it leads. I'll travel far and wide." The back matter includes fascinating facts about octopi and brief stories about other eight-tentacle wonders." — Washington Parent

From the Publisher

04/01/2018
PreS-Gr 1—An imagined adventure inspired by real-life escape-artist octopodes. Told in rhyming couplets that are occasionally a little clumsy, the story shows the eponymous Inky dreaming of the world outside the walls of his aquarium. One day, Inky discovers the lid of his tank unlatched, and though his friends decline to join him, he slips through a drain and into the open sea. The illustrations are humorous, and rendered in bright and tonal colors. The human characters depicted, including a family, a custodian, and another aquarium worker, are white. The colors and shapes used to depict the marine life create a great deal of personality and visual interest for the background of the illustrations. Portrayals of Inky's life in the aquarium make more use of white space while the world outside incorporates more color, with the final pages depicting the open ocean and coral reef proving the most colorful of all. The back matter provides additional information about octopodes, as well as the stories of their real-life aquarium high jinks. VERDICT A suitable selection for reading aloud or as an independent read for early elementary schoolers.—Kelly Topita, Anne Arundel County Public Library, MD

School Library Journal

2018-02-03
Inky the octopus sings his tale.Longing for the excitement of the "open sea," a captive octopus describes its getaway. Basing her re-creation on an actual octopus's escape from the New Zealand Aquarium, in 2016, Guendelsberger imagines the dissonance between Inky's comfortable familiarity with aquarium life and his yearning to be free, finishing with his actual escape. The text is written in ballad meter, repeating variations on the refrain: "Out of this tank, I must break free. / I hear the ocean calling me!" Readers aloud may find some arrhythmic lines: "I've always liked eight-arm charades and seaweed hide-and-seek. / I've had fun playing gravel hockey and tentacle tag each week." More importantly, the first-person narrative anthropomorphizes this alien ocean invertebrate, attributing dreams, senses, and communication skills that are human but not likely appropriate for octopuses or even fish. (In contradiction to the endmatter entry, the correct plural is octopuses, not the occasional octopodes or the incorrect back-formation octopi.) In a highly unlikely conversation with his tankmate Blotchy, he invites the fish to accompany him into "the far and great unknown." The fish replies he would "rather stay / within his comfy home." Leonard's appealing cartoon illustrations reinforce this anthropomorphizing, with amusing expressions in Inky's humanoid eyes and even a bag of belongings hanging from one tentacle as he imagines his quest. All the humans shown seem to be white. Since the actual escape was nothing short of astonishing, the anthropomorphization serves to cheapen rather than ennoble the subject.Less implausible than Casey Lyell and Sebastià Serra's Inky's Great Escape (2017) but still unfortunate. (historical note, octopus facts, bibliography) (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews