Official Review: The Great Adventures of Peter the Fish

[Katherine E Wall]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Great Adventures of Peter the Fish" by Glenn Thorpe.]

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The Great Adventures of Peter the Fish by Glenn Thorpe is a lovely children’s story designed to be read aloud to children. The illustrations are vibrantly colored, serene and engaging, if a little static, as in most of the scenes, the characters are in the same or reversed positions. Still, the story is engaging enough that this is not a major problem.

Peter has a dream. Unlike the rest of the fish in his family and in his pond. He dreams of a beautiful, large lake. This is the story of his journey to that lake. It is written in fourteen short chapters, just the right length for a read-aloud bedtime story. Each chapter ends with open questions to engage the children’s imaginations and problem-solving skills, while keeping them invested and wanting to continue the story the next night. Of course, most children will beg to have the next session read, but I think parents can actually use the end of the chapter questions to encourage the child to ponder the ideas as they go to sleep and then discuss before reading the next night. At least, I would recommend they do it that way.

During Peter’s journey, he faces many challenges, and meets new characters who illustrate some of the issues we have dealing with others and, more importantly, appropriate solutions. Within the story, children are introduced to values which will help them in everyday life, including dealing with bullies and meeting new friends. While many of the new characters Peter meets continue with him on his quest, some do not become friends. I think this is important, and if everyone he met became his friend, the overall scope of the story would suffer.

It is obvious that this story has been tested on children, the author’s own children, and while this can sometimes mean there is a bias, I think the simple but important values, and the ongoing saga would appeal to many parents.

One of the best things about this for the parent and the child is the mix between standard narrative and iambic rhyming lines. For the most part, the author has constructed the dialogue in rhyme and the narrative in regular prose. However, this is not consistent, and it is the only real criticism I have for this book. As I was reading, when I hit a passage with the metre and rhyme, I anticipated dialogue, and the story falters when it is used in the narrative. Likewise, when I read a section of dialogue and it did not contain this stylistic choice, the story suffered.

Beyond that, for the most part, the story was well-written, but it needs some careful proof-reading for typos. There were some sections of dialogue missing opening or closing quotation marks, or sometimes both, and there were a few places where commas were missing, as well as some spelling errors. Again, these appeared to be typographical errors and not grammar or standard punctuation errors.

With these minor errors corrected, and some attention paid to consistency in the stylistic choice of rhymed dialogue, this book would be a fun bedtime story which I would purchase. With its simplified hero’s quest, it introduces young children to a time-honored, story-telling tradition, one which they will no doubt encounter in stories throughout their life.

Invested with the affirmative message of following your dreams, and essential values important for strong and healthy relationships, without preaching, this book is one I would be happy to share with the children in my life. I give it a 3 out of 4, due to the errors and the inconsistency in the overall style. These are things the author can easily address to improve the story.

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