Dan Santat is an author whom elementary-aged students know. Dan Santat is an illustrator whom elementary-age students know. By the time kids enter elementary school, they’ve read at least two illustrated books from Dan Santat and one of his graphic novels. * His name is as ubiquitous in children’s literature as Michael Connelly or James Patterson are for adult readers of a certain type. A Fishboy Named…Sashimi is an early reader graphic novel from Dan Santat that does what his fans expect and continues in a strange, new, wonderful direction.
Elementary-age readers might not even know that they like Santat’s books. His illustration style varies to an extent from series to books. They can range from realistic, dreamy, with a side of realism, anthropomorphic manic animals, goofy realistic animals to cartoonish characters more in line with a typical graphic novel. A Fishboy Named…Shashimi is more in line with the final category, but there’s very little typical about it.
That’s because getting kids energized about reading is challenging. Getting them to read is tough, but getting them to want to read is a different level of a puzzle. The book has to have that curious quality, a degree of kid humor/dad jokes, fun illustrations, and it helps to have a unique plot, especially for reluctant readers.
A Fishboy Named…Sashimi got the memo on the ingredients needed for a great, elementary school-level graphic novel. Sashimi is a fish, who is impersonating a boy in the town of Barnacle Bay. This town has a history of sea monster sightings and an annual festival each year to celebrate and/or hunt the beast. The graphic novel is established in a way of urban folklore, where a friend tells a friend, and the telephone game of elementary school children is afoot.
When Sashimi starts his first day of school he’s asked to introduce himself. He presents a fake-looking id that phonetically spells out his name with a real photograph of a fish. As he’s showing the class this he calmly states, “See, I’m a real kid.” The class bully says to the previously new kid that he’s off the hook. Joey, the old-new kid, looks at the list of Japanese words on the wall and realizes that the new kid’s name is the same word as raw fish.
Readers will expect Sashimi and Joey to become friends, and they do. They explore the social morays of elementary school, the bullies who will always intellectually live there and a funny look at the urban legends that exist in every town. A Fishboy Named…Sashimi does all of that in a way that’s self-aware, easy to read and very, very funny. It’s genuinely sweet and overtly asks readers to give the character a chance. In some packages that delivery would seem desperate, but with Sashimi it feels like it’s a part of its personality. He’s a little naive, very kind to everyone, laughs too loudly at jokes he should’ve heard before and is obviously a fish who is wearing an oversize orange sweatshirt.
This is a graphic novel series that elementary school-age students will love. Some of Santat’s graphic novel series only have a couple of entries to them. Mighty Robots was a younger-skewing illustrated book/graphic novel hybrid with nine books. Sidekicks, a graphic novel series has two entries and according to Amazon, A Fish Called…Sashimi is book one of two. Even if it’s two books and done, and the sequel is as entertaining as the first, it’s a welcome addition to the bookshelf of your eight-year old. After all, it is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all, isn’t it?
A Fishboy Named…Sashimi is by Dan Santat and is available on Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing.
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