Swimmy by Leo Lionni (Picture Book) (Award Winning)

      I read Swimmy written and illustrated by Leo Lionni.  This book was published by Random House Children's Books.  This book is about a black fish named Swimmy who lives with a school full of red fish.  One day Swimmy's siblings were all eaten by a big tuna.  Swimmy searches the sea and eventually finds a new school of red fish.  When he finds these fish, they are in hiding because they're afraid if they go out in the open they'll be eaten.  Swimmy comes up with a plan where all the red fish swim very close together and create the shape of a big fish and Swimmy will be the eye.  They do this so that other big fish will see them and think they are just another big fish too and therefore they'll be safe.
     I think the illustrations in this book are so beautiful.  They appear as water colored and are very unique compared to many children's books. This story is a rather simple one to read and has a lot of basic words that would be easy for young children to identify.  I think this book is a great book to read in the classroom with easy to follow language and very special illustrations.
     I think a great classroom activity a teacher could do with their classroom would be to discuss how just in the book the red fish became almost a family with Swimmy, that we are a our own small family here in our classroom.  I think it would be fun to either have students paint a self portrait, or take individual pictures of the students and together create our own Swimmy.
     Subject: Teamwork, bravery

•   Genre: Children's Literature 
•   Awards: The Randolph Caldecott Medal

•    Here is a YouTube link to a cute video a puppeteer created while telling the story of Swimmy.