A savory mix of acceptance and calamari - Kraken Me Up by Jeffrey Ebbeler

We're so lucky this week to have another post by the incredibly talented Betsy Bird! Betsy Bird is the Collection Materials Specialist of Evanston Public Library and the former Youth Materials Specialist of New York Public Library. She reviews for Kirkus, runs the School Library Journal blog A Fuse #8 Production, hosts the podcast Story Seeds, and runs the podcast Fuse 8 n’ Kate. Betsy is the author such books as LONG ROAD TO THE CIRCUS, her debut middle grade novel out this fall, with art by David Small. 

I confess that upon reading Jeffrey Ebbeler’s near perfect easy book KRAKEN ME UP I felt distinctly miffed. As far as I’m concerned, if an author/artist has the necessary skills and wherewithal to produce a legitimately good and original easy book, why would they shine their lights under bushels until now? Well, the fact of the matter is that in the case of Mr. Ebbeler, he’s been in the picture book game a very long time. Take a gander at his website and you’ll see a large number of familiar titles on display including (I’d like to note) an entire easy reader series called We Read Phonics from around a decade ago. No stranger to the easy reading format, Ebbeler has clearly taken care to hone his skills over the past few years. The end result is the aforementioned KRAKEN ME UP, a book that manages to both have a story worth remembering (two words: pet Kraken) as well as words that fall perfectly within the purview of a beginning readership.

  This tale begins at a setting worthy of CHARLOTTE’S WEB itself. When a little girl brings her pet to the county fair pet show, no one thinks much of it. That is, until they notice that it’s a humungous, hard-to-miss Kraken! As pets go, this one’s a standout, and certainly there are prejudices to overcome. Yet after the Kraken, subjected to fear on the part of the other children, has a good sulk in a pond, a solution is reached, beneficial to one and all. All told, this is an exceedingly sweet and subtle tale of acceptance and calamari. I’m sure we’re all familiar with easy books that strain at the tensile strength of that ambiguous term “easy”. What sets this book apart is its absolute commitment to words of a particularly basic construction. The actual word “kraken” is an odd one, I would grant, but there are few phrases here more complex than your standard “pretty pig” and “fine hen”. Additionally, I would also like to award some extra points to Holiday House for publishing this book at the standard 9 X 6 inches. As many a librarian will tell you, attempts to shelve their oversized I Like to Read series on our library shelves over the years proved to be a losing proposition. After all, easy book shelves are significantly smaller than picture book shelves. Happily, KRAKEN ME UP clocks in at a mere 9.25 inches high and 6.25 inches wide. This book is also just as adorable as its cover implies, and, after finishing it, both kids and their gatekeepers will find themselves hoping for more Kraken books real soon.