Overview

With dozens of major awards between them, a revered poet and a versatile artist pool their mastery to sing the praises of an undersea wonder. A graceful bundle of nerves three times as ancient as the dinosaurs, the jellyfish is no fish but a spineless invertebrate without brain, heart, blood, or bones. Inside glass tanks in crowded aquariums, jellies hold visitors rapt with their slow-motion water ballet. Most of the world's nearly four thousand species emit an otherworldly light, glowing red, yellow, violet, or blue in the underwater dark. Fifty species boast deadly venom, including pink meanies with boa-like tentacles, box jellies with two-dozen eyes apiece, and deadliest of all, cubozoans the size of human thumbnails. Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Carole Boston Weatherford brings poetry and playfulness to natural science as she shares her fascination with a singular creature. Fourteen wildly divergent poems--by turns dramatic and serene--pulse with life. From spreads of shimmering bioluminescence to graphic panels, stylish artwork blends poetry with science and fact with folklore and myth to form the ideal introduction to the ""immortal"" and mysterious jellyfish.

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Reviews

The seamless integration of varied artistic approaches--from naturalistic painting to technical illustration--makes each spread feel distinct yet cohesive; this thought-provoking marriage of art and science celebrates both knowledge and mystery. An imaginative triumph that will mesmerize readers as thoroughly as the creatures it portrays. --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) A necessary purchase, this glorious collaboration between author and illustrator brings the world of jellyfish to unforgettable life. --School Library Journal (starred review)

Author Information

Carole Boston Weatherford is a Newbery Honoree and a New York Times best-selling author and poet and was named the 2025-2026 Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. Her numerous books for children include the Coretta Scott King Author Award winner Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, illustrated by Floyd Cooper; the Caldecott Honor Books Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, and Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, illustrated by Ekua Holmes, which was also a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book; the critically acclaimed Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library, illustrated by Eric Velasquez; the Newbery Honor Book BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom, illustrated by Michele Wood; and How Do You Spell Unfair? MacNolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee, illustrated by Frank Morrison. Carole Boston Weatherford lives in Maryland. Bagram Ibatoulline has illustrated many highly acclaimed books for children, including Runaway Pond by Nancy Price Graff; The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and Great Joy, both by Kate DiCamillo; The Matchbox Diary by Paul Fleischman; On the Blue Comet by Rosemary Wells; and The Serpent Came to Gloucester by M. T. Anderson. Bagram Ibatoulline lives in Chichester, New York.

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