Review by Kirkus Book Review
Where Kraus tells that Herman, a blissful young octopus, ""helped his enemies,"" we see him camouflaging a trio of sharks with his blue ink to save them from an ornate, hissing sea dragon, and when the words read ""He helped the old"" -- the picture shows him tying bright balloons to ponderous turtles to make their swimming easier. The text in fact states only that Herman ""likes to help"" -- his mother and father, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, friends and enemies, the young and the old, the poor and needy, the fireman and the policeman; then at dinner time when Herman's father asks ""May I help you to some mashed potatoes?"" Herman answers ""No thanks, I'll help myself."" It's a bit of a letdown when what seems like the groundwork for either an adventure or a new view of Herman is reduced to the setup for a one-line joke, but perhaps that's just part of the fun. The rest is of course provided by Aruego's bright, showy elaborations on Herman's helpful antics in a truly aquarian world where the sinuous, candy colored sea anemones from which he rescues his friends wiggle and glow with disarming ostentation and even the darting creatures (sea gerbils?) that Herman helps his father catch are pursued with a show of grooving benignity belied only by the victims' facial expressions. Buoyant. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
