My sister and I will be featuring Janet Halfmann as our first author interview on Monday, March 30th. She has also generously given us an autographed copy of Little Skink’s Tail and Seven Miles to Freedom for a giveaway. Both are excellent and will be parted with somewhat reluctantly. Details will be forthcoming.

Janet is passionate about animals and nature as much of her writing focuses on those two themes. I swear that my daughter and her are cut out of the same mold. My five-year old is fascinated with animals and just loves them. She doesn’t like dolls a whole lot, but has a large stuffed animal collection and is amazingly good with animals.

Dolphin’s Rescue is a lovely little book about Pacific White-Sided Dolphin and one in particular who happens to get a little carried away with his dolphin acrobatics and manages to land himself aboard a research boat. Dolphin’s experience is based on a true story of a dolphin who really did just that. Janet does a nice job of telling the story of Dolphin and his life. By reading this book you will learn some basic information about this type of dolphins live, how they use sound waves to locate prey and objects under water and what they eat. You also learn how they support each other when one is injured or sick. Helping the dolphin to rise to the surface.

Now Dolphin’s Rescue is part of the Smithsonian Oceanic Collection published through Soundprints, which ” . . . fosters at the earliest age an appreciation and understanding of wildlife and habitats so that our children will grow to respect the environment as adults.” I think this book does that. It doesn’t give tons of factual detail so you are overwelmed, but gives you enough to see what life is like as a dolphin.

I read the book with my daughter and her two friends and they seemed fascinated with the idea that dolphins could leap into the air, which included one of her friends trying a few of his own. Thank goodness we didn’t have an unfortunate landing like Dolphin. I like how this book introduces children to the animals of the ocean in a way they can understand and makes you want to experience the ocean.

Steven Petruccio does a beautiful job with the illustrations, which I believe are in watercolor. They make you want to swim in the ocean and see dolphins up close with lots of details with fish, seagulls and lovely skies. You almost feel like you are in the ocean with them.

I would recommend this book for anyone trying to instill a love of nature in children. I could also see elementary teachers using this book for great science classes on how dolphins use sound to locate items and for large motor activites as children could pretend to leap and jump like dolphins as my daughter’s friend did.