Trapped! A Whale’s Rescue

Frequent collaborators Burleigh and Minor present a tense story of an attempt to free a humpback whale entangled in crab traps, based on a real-life event off the California coast in 2006. Burleigh writes in three-line passages that evoke the feeling of haiku (“The struggle begins./ The web of ropes cuts into her skin./ She flails, starts to sink,/ fights for air”), while Minor’s gouache paintings highlight the whale’s immensity, strength, and vulnerability as small human divers attempt to cut her free of the ropes binding her. Endnotes detailing the event that inspired the book, as well as information about humpbacks and the dangerousness of whale rescues, round out a quietly dramatic survival story. Ages 4–6. (Apr.)