An elementary introduction to a slippery topic.
Using the word as often as possible, including at the end of every block of text, Prager exudes basic facts about a gallery of marine creatures. These include jellyfish (“Its whole body is see-through SLIME”), slugs, coral, vampire squid and the ever-popular hagfish—which responds to danger with “undersea goo! Lots of goo!” There are missteps: An unembellished mention of a squid’s “eight arms, and two tentacles” may leave readers floundering, and the author slides past mucus’ chemical components without a mention. Nevertheless, she does secrete a clear trail of information about how the icky ichor is used in nature for offense, defense, flotation and locomotion. Moreover, a closing section offers more detail on the substance’s varied properties, as well as other enrichment material and even an easy recipe. Aside from the all-too–close-up hagfish scene, Bersani’s illustrations don’t really capture a proper sense of slime’s ooey-gooey quality, but she does render marine scenes and creatures accurately.
The visuals aren’t quite as crowd-pleasing as the text, but much of the content here will nonetheless stick with younger audiences. (Informational picture book. 6-8)