BABY WHALE RESCUE, THE TRUE STORY OF J.J.
by Caroline Arnold and Richard Hewett
Bridgewater Books, 1999
Coincidences astound me. Don’t you think little ones happen at an alarming frequency?
This week I had lunch with a writer friend and she mentioned the author Caroline Arnold to me. I didn’t know the name, but my friend told me she was a prolific writer of children’s non-fiction and that I should look at her work. And this morning it rained, AGAIN, and work in the garden was postponed, AGAIN. You simply can’t thin radishes and lettuces in pouring rain. Instead, my daughter and I curled up on the couch with a stack of new books from Mimi. (Mimi, my mother-in-law, is a retired elementary teacher and she is in the process of cleaning out her closets … my lucky kids and I are inheriting books by the boxload.) The first book my daughter selected was BABY WHALE RESCUE, by Richard Hewett and … Caroline Arnold.
This book is a perfect non-fiction for children. It tells the true story of a baby gray whale found near death in the southern California surf in 1987. The whale, later named J.J., was rescued and cared for at Sea World in San Diego. The story of J.J’s dramatic rescue, rehabilitation, and return to the sea would capture the attention of just about any kid. And because the author’s are skilled at what they do, readers learn a few things as they make their way through the book. For example, my daughter has been wishing ever since we read the book that she could grow some baleen. Baleen is the brush-like fringe inside the mouth of many whale species … they use it to strain edible food and debris from the mud and guck they suck up off the ocean floor. It will come in handy, my daughter says, if the rain never stops and we are forced to thin vegetables in the mud!
Coincidences abound, I tell you. It’s plain amazing.
Best,
Loree