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Reviewed by Donna Parrey for Readers' Favorite
Every child has experienced that momentary panic of turning your head and not seeing your parent nearby. Most of those frightening moments are soothed quickly when Mom or Dad reassuringly appears at your side. Freddie the Flounder written by Nocola Williams and illustrated by Cissy Langley tells the rhyming story of how a little fish experiences such a scare when his parents are swished away by a strong ocean current. You might say the picture book is Disney’s “Finding Nemo” in reverse. Despite his fear, Freddie decides to swim off in a quest to find his Mom and Dad. He encounters various members of sea life along his journey to locate his parents, bringing to mind another classic, P. D. Eastman’s “Are You My Mother?”
Nocola Williams manages to maintain both the rhyme and the meter quite well throughout Freddie the Flounder, no easy task when fully telling a story. Williams adds a counting game within the story as Freddie meets one octopus, two dolphins, three clams, four crabs, and five turtles. A highlight of the book is Cissy Langley’s colorful, playful illustrations. The bright pictures will appeal to children, and even parents will delight in the details which enrich the illustrations, such as coral, a pearl in a clamshell, an anemone, bubbles, a message in a corked bottle and a sunken ship. While the ending might be reassuring to children, it could leave parents feeling that Freddie hadn’t really solved his problem. Williams’s book does open the door to parents having discussions with their children about what to do and what not to do if they should find themselves lost one day.
