Review by Booklist Review
Following his fanciful tales of mouse adventurers in Lindbergh (2014) and Armstrong (2016), Kuhlmann is back with another inventive rodent, who builds a submersible to explore a shipwreck. A mouse curious about stories of a long-missing relative's treasure lost somewhere on the ocean floor seeks advice from an elderly, mustachioed mouse, who helps him, through an extensive process of trial and error, to build a working underwater craft. After observing how air stays trapped under a glass under water, for instance, he builds a diving bell, but when that fails, the two mice revise and improve their designs. As usual, Kuhlmann's realistic, technically precise illustrations seamlessly incorporate historic inventions and vehicle designs into the fantastical story of mice on a mission. Perilous underwater scenes when the mice test their inventions add a nice touch of suspense. The turn at the end, revealing the true nature of the treasure, is a clever surprise, which most readers won't see coming. Recommend this engrossing mix of STEM and animal adventure to kids fascinated by engineering or invention.--Sarah Hunter Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-5-A young mouse named Pete recruits a professor mouse from the University of Mice to help him find the treasure his ancestor mentions in a letter-a treasure lost at sea. Together, the two visit a library and a museum to figure out where the treasure may have been lost. Using the information they gather, the two mice create a mouse-size submarine and set off on their adventure. As in Kuhlmann's previous titles, Armstrong: The Adventurous Journey of a Mouse to the Moon and Lindbergh: The Tale of a Flying Mouse, the gorgeous illustrations tell most of the tale. The large trim size allows the art to include plenty of fascinating details that young readers will want to pore over. VERDICT Kuhlmann has created another science-based adventure full of delightful details. A first purchase for most libraries.-Heidi Grange, Summit Elementary School, Smithfield, UT © Copyright 2018. 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
In this lengthy picture book (translated from the German), two adventurous mice build a miniature submarine to find a sunken treasure referenced in an ancestor's letter. They discover a sealed book of inventions in the shipwreck and realize their ancestor helped create the light bulb. Immersive illustrations with occasional wordless spreads highlight the scale of the tiny undersea explorers. More about "The Invention of the Electric Light" and Thomas Edison is appended. (c) Copyright 2019. 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
A note on an old scrap of paper leads two intrepid mice to sunken treasure.As in Kuhlmann's Armstrong (2016) and Lindbergh (2014), the journey turns out to be at least as rewarding as the prize. Inspired by a generations-old family story, young Pete enlists the help of a pipe-smoking professor at the University of Micefirst to search old records for the location of a certain ocean liner that had sunk in the mid-Atlantic, and then to invent a submarine that will allow them to explore the wreck. "We need to approach the problem scientifically," says the professorand so begins a laborious, sometimes-dangerous process of trial and error, of study and experiment. In the pictures, which are rendered with terrific attention to fine detail in equally arresting monochrome and sepia-toned color, mice scamper through human-sized archival files, design a fishlike submarine that takes shape rivet by rivet, then dive past swirling shoals of fish and an immense whale. The minuscule divers emerge in antique-looking gear to enter a shadowy wreck, examine a spill of outsized coins and other wrack, then carry a small chest back to their craft. That chest contains not gold but a diary with diagrams that connect Pete's ancestor with one of the greatest human inventors of all. The author closes with nods to both Thomas Edison and to several earlier experimenters with claims to the first light bulb.Another technological watershedcrossed first by a mouse. (Fantasy. 8-11) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
