Review by New York Times Review
A vent octopus from "Down, Down Down"; below, an old-fashioned diving suit, from "The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau." JACQUES-YVES COUSTEAU used the fine word "manfish" to describe the creature he became when swimming underwater. But this red-capped French explorer, with his prominent beak and bony frame, could easily have used another metaphor. Gliding above the coral in flippered feet, he wasn't so much a thing of gills and scales. He was a bird. The image is especially apt for Cousteau, co-inventor of the Aqua-lung, which for the first time allowed divers to carry their own air, attached to nothing. Before, they went below in leaden boots, connected to boats by air hoses. Now, instead of lurching, they could soar. From boyhood, Cousteau had a recurring dream of flying with birds. After his first Aqua-lung dive, somersaulting through a liquid sky, he never had the dream again. You can see Cousteau soaring in "Manfish," by Jennifer Berne, one of two picture-book biographies that have arrived ahead of his 100th birthday next year. The other is "The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau," by Dan Yaccarino. Together they are a timely gift to the children - and many parents - who are too young to know the adventures of Captain Cousteau and his ship, Calypso. These are the unfortunates for whom nature documentaries are a 24-hour basic-cable commodity, whose sensitivity to the ocean's manifold wonders has been dulled by a limited diet of sharks, killer whales and penguins. They have no memory of le Captain's mournful monotone pondering ze inscrutable habits of ze grouper. That awful "Calypso" anthem by a yodeling John Denver stirs no associations at all. The Aqua-lung (or, today, scuba tank) is on the short list of human inventions that fundamentally changed the way we know our world, and Cousteau put it to good use for decades, exploring oceans, seas and great rivers and capturing their creatures on film. But time and tide have done sad things to Cousteau's renown. He lives most vividly in middle-aged American memory as the star of "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau," which ran on ABC in the 1960s and 70s. Because of that - and despite achievements as a writer, explorer, documentary filmmaker and environmentalist - he seems today to occupy the cruel twilight reserved for half-forgotten TV personalities. How do the new books correct that injustice? Earnestly but imperfectly. They share the same straightforward narrative. Young Jacques is a sickly boy who is urged by doctors to swim to build his strength. He shows an early mechanical aptitude and a fascination with photography. He saves to buy a movie camera and immediately takes it apart. He makes films with his friends and family. He loves the water. Then destiny arrives, in a simple gift of goggles. "Beneath the water he was surrounded by silvery green forests of sea plants and fish he had never seen before," Berne writes. "Everything was silent and shimmering. It was a . . . magical underwater world. At that moment Jacques knew his life was changed forever." He eagerly takes his cameras and lights underwater. He gets a ship and a crew, and they crisscross the watery planet. Whales, otters, shipwrecks, squid: if it's wet, they find and film it They are fearless. They are also French: "When diving in the waters near France," Yaccarino writes, "Cousteau and his crew found a sunken ship full of wine jars over 2,200 years old! They tasted the wine. Alas, it was bitter." COUSTEAU longs to go deeper. He invents diving saucers and plunges to inky depths. Then, he is heartbroken. He sees the oceans and their fish slowly being destroyed. His beloved Mediterranean is becoming a sewer. He crusades to stop pollution. He leaves a legacy of books and films, bis life's labor, so that others can come to love the undersea world as he did, and save it. Yaccarino's book, written for slightly older children than "Manfish," has the plainer prose, dotted with the Captain's aphorisms: "We protect what we love." "If we were logical, the future would be bleak indeed. But we are more than logical. . . . And we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work." Yaccarino's illustrations are colorful, multilayered abstractions that have a mod appeal but do nothing to reward oceanographic curiosity. The writing in "Manfish" veers toward the preachy, with a few too many periods. ("Worlds that are now yours. To discover. To care for. And to love.") But it has the lovelier and more absorbing pictures, in acrylic on linen, by Éric Puybaret, who is also a diver. "Manfish" is more fun simply because it has more fish to look at, including a pullout page that, turned vertically, gives a suggestion of the teeming depths of the kingdoms that so captivated Cousteau. But even that is not all it could be. For capturing the scale and biological richness of the ocean in a picture book, it seems hard to do better than "Down, Down, Down," by Steve Jenkins. It's not a Cousteau book, but it is definitely his undersea world. Through the almost magical use of cut paper, Jenkins takes the reader on a voyage from the surface to the sunlit shallows to the very bottom of the sea. Here creatures are named and described. They almost seem to move. A flying squid catapults out of the water. A school of cold-eyed mackerel zero in on shrimpy little krill. A girdle of Venus comb jelly (a what?!) undulates, looking somehow sentient, even though it lacks brain or eyes. Jenkins clearly digs weirdness. He shows us a vampire squid and the lacy tendrils of a siphonophore. Then he turns the lights out (we're at 500 meters) and shows them again - they're bioluminescent, lighted up like Broadway bulbs. By then we're only about halfway through the book, and have seen only a fraction of the abyss. It's nearly 11,000 meters to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the deepest spot on Earth, and Jenkins is taking us all the way. Lawrence Downes is an editorial writer at The Times.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
Yaccarino is best known for his whimsical animal characters, including some, such as Oswald the octopus, who now star in their own television series. Here he switches focus to a real-world, human hero: famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau. The brief, evenly paced text, which includes a few direct quotes, describes Cousteau's lifelong fascination with the sea, filmmaking, and invention, beginning with depictions of the scientist as a young boy, tinkering with cameras and swimming in the ocean to recover from chronic illness. Rendered in gouache and airbrush, the playful illustrations evoke popular mid-twentieth-century patterns and shades a fitting reference to Cousteau's professional heyday. A few scenes seem to emphasize design over realistic depictions: undersea vessels, in particular, are indistinct shapes, and Cousteau himself often appears as a stylized figure. The fanciful, textured images give a sense of the sea's infinite swirl of life, though, and they are further grounded by the solid, straightforward words. Pair this energetic, inspiring biography with Jennifer Berne's Manfish (2008), another picture-book view of Cousteau's life and work.--Engberg, Gillian Copyright 2009 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Yaccarino (Every Friday) dives into more complex material than many of his previous books for younger readers with this captivating biography. "Weak and sickly" as a boy, Cousteau turned to the Mediterranean (and to tinkering) in his youth, but his life changes forever when a friend gives him a pair of goggles. ("Man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free," says the oceanographer-his exuberant quotes lend the story a bubbly energy.) Cousteau makes his own diving equipment-the Aqua-Lung, a cover for his camera, undersea lighting-eventually equipping his own research vessel and sharing the world's oceans through his many films and books. Yaccarino's retro-style spreads-smoky blues and violets contrasting with vibrant reds and golds-are nicely suited to Cousteau's underwater playground; the fuzzy quality of his airbrushing makes it seem as though readers are submerged themselves. Yaccarino's somewhat abstracted forms won't satisfy children who want photo-real views of sea life, but the author's enthusiasm for Cousteau, as well as the majesty and mystery of the sea, is apparent on every page. Ages 6-9. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2-Jacques Cousteau's obsession with the underwater world lead to an extraordinary life. As a young child, Cousteau was often sick, and his doctors suggested that he build his strength by swimming in the sea. After being badly injured in a car accident as a young adult, Cousteau created his own physical therapy by swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. His life changed forever when he was given a pair of goggles and was suddenly able to see underwater for the first time. Jacques was enthralled by the new world that he found below the surface, and he began a lifelong mission of ocean research and conservation. Driven by a need for better equipment, Jacques constantly worked to improve his underwater tools. He invented the first aqua lung, adapted his cameras for underwater use, and even created a research lab on the bottom of the ocean. With the help of his research teams, Cousteau made hundreds of discoveries about the ocean and the creatures and plants that live in it. Based on the picture book written and illustrated by Dan Yaccarino (Knopf, 2009), this short film depicts Cousteau's life through the colorful and clear illustrations that are simple but compelling. Viewers will get the sense that they are underwater, exploring the mysteries of the sea with the scientist. Qarie Marshall narrates with a calm, well-annunciated voice. He even uses a French accent when quoting Cousteau directly. Young viewers will enjoy learning about this amazing life and will be excited to know more.-Jenny Ventling, Greene County Public Library, OH (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Primary) As sleek as a seal, Yaccarino's biography of "the world's ambassador of the oceans" uses sinuous shapes and a retro fifties palette to evoke the beauty of Cousteau's watery domain. With spot quotations from the man himself, the text succinctly numbers Cousteau's inventions (the Aqua-Lung) and achievements (The Silent World was "the first full-length, full-color underwater film ever made"), while the gouache and airbrush paintings go far to convey the allure of the deep. A full-page picture illustrating Cousteau's use of underwater lighting shows a blue seahorse caught in the beams of three lights, the whole scene awash with deep reds; a double-page, blue-toned spread of the Antarctic waters teems with marine life...and one tiny camera-wielding scuba diver almost nose-to-nose with a humpback whale. Lots of variety in picture size and page layout keeps the book dynamic; a timeline and reading list provide further information. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
This second early biography of Cousteau in a year echoes Jennifer Berne's Manfish: A Story of Jacques Cousteau (2008), illustrated by Eric Puybaret, in offering visuals that are more fanciful than informational, but also complements it with a focus less on the early life of the explorer and eco-activist than on his later inventions and achievements. In full-bleed scenes that are often segmented and kaleidoscopic, Yaccarino sets his hook-nosed subject amid shoals of Impressionistic fish and other marine images, rendered in multiple layers of thinly applied, imaginatively colored paint. His customarily sharp, geometric lines take on the wavy translucence of undersea shapes with a little bit of help from the airbrush. Along with tracing Cousteau's undersea career from his first, life-changing, pair of goggles and the later aqualung to his minisub Sea Flea, the author pays tribute to his revolutionary film and TV work, and his later efforts to call attention to the effects of pollution. Cousteau's enduring fascination with the sea comes through clearly, and can't help sparking similar feelings in readers. (chronology, source list) (Picture book/biography. 6-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
