Unlikely Fish Books

It's been a while since I did a book post, so I thought I'd share some favorite fish stories we've been reading...but they're not what you'd think.  In fact...most people probably wouldn't even call them fish stories, but they're two of Firecracker's recent favorites.

Having exhausted all of the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary, we've moved on to the Henry Huggins series also by Beverly Cleary (as read-aloud books).  I wasn't sure how she'd like them...but it turns out she thinks they're pretty much as good as Ramona.  In the climax of Henry and Ribsy, Henry manages to catch a huge salmon with his bare hands by holding onto his gills.  It's pretty exciting...REALLY.  Firecracker was fascinated, but had no idea what gills were and kept asking about them.

So the next time I was at the grocery store I asked the butcher to wrap up just one tilapia for me...since they're pretty much the cheapest fish at the store and they are sold whole.  I planned to do the activity with the kids myself...really I did.  But Hubby was home and it just seemed more like a Father-Kid bonding experience.

So they looked at it together.

And Hubby showed the kids the different parts...

...especially the gills...

...and Firecracker was fascinated by the eyes, which of course meant she wanted to poke them with her finger.

My original plan, once we were done with the fish, was to do this fun looking project from That Artist Woman for making Fish Prints from Tilapia.  However, Firecracker REALLY wanted to scale and cook the fish.  Why you ask?  Because they talk about scaling fish in Amelia Bedelia and the Surprise Shower by Peggy Parish (a favorite of Firecracker's).  So they had fun scaling the fish together. 

Then Hubby cooked it for the kids...and they wouldn't eat it.  But now Firecracker knows what gills are.