Dolphin baby!

I'm a school librarian but I really didn't know much about Nicola Davies until the literacy coordinator at my school started raving about what a great writer she is. With all that, I still never took the time to read one of her books until Dolphin Baby appeared at my door as one of the Cybils nominees.

Wow. What a great story. How did the author do it? Page one and suddenly I was a baby dolphin, swimming along with my mother.

Davies tells the story just right, mixing cool facts (“Every dolphin has one whistle that's its own....”) as sidebars to the story of the day-by-day life of a little dolphin. The dolphin is enough like the child reader that he can identify with the dolphin and yet different enough to intrigue him with his other-ness.

I love the voice of Davies in this book, a voice that sounds like she is right here with the child as he reads along, sharing info that will help the child read through all the hard parts.

Brilliant.