Don't Eat the Cleaners!

February 1, 2025
An introduction to a most unusual cleaning service. In Australia's Great Barrier Reef and other coral reefs around the world, tiny cleaner fish and shrimp play a vital role, removing parasites and dead skin from bigger fish, which line up for the privilege. Stockdale, who mentioned this behavior in her picture bookLine Up! (2022), now devotes a whole book to this example of symbiosis. She uses exposition rather than the rhymed couplets characteristic of her many previous titles--an appropriate choice, given that this topic requires a bit of explanation, deftly provided. Stockdale describes the need for cleaning, notes how the cleaners let bigger fish know they're open for business, and tells readers about the benefits this mutually helpful activity provides both cleaners and cleanees. Youngsters may be shocked to learn that even hungry sharks get their teeth cleaned this way. Even more surprisingly, tiny cleaner fish will readily clean scuba divers' mouths if they remove their mouthpieces. In Stockdale's clean, stylized, digitally rendered illustrations, the fish are easily recognizable, shown in a coral reef on a solid blue background (except for the moray eel in its brown den). She closes with a page of marine life, labeled by name, and an invitation for readers to go back and find each within the various scenes. A striking demonstration of cooperation in the natural world.(Informational picture book. 4-8)

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January 16, 2025
Grades 1-4 Stockdale first poses a conundrum: How do fish get dirty in the water? It's because of parasites and dead skin that cling to their bodies, explains the author, with the lively book then diving into symbiotic marine relationships and behaviors on the Great Barrier Reef. The science is made easy by Stockdale's comparison to children's habits: "You might scrub yourself with a washcloth or sponge, but reef animals are washed by small fish and shrimp." Full-spread, vivid digital illustrations show the animals helping one another at "cleaning stations," gathering spots where "cleaner shrimp work as ocean dentists," wrasse eat dirt and dead skin from puffer fish, and butterfly fish and angelfish clean manta ray scratches. Children may have the ambition to try what an open-mouthed scuba diver is shown doing in one startling image--using the shrimp dentists for a cleaning--but until then, they can gather plenty of detail for reports and enjoyment from Stockdale's cheery explainer. A closing list of water-life images provides a fun seek-and-find opportunity.

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