Someday, Narwhal

This fanciful picture book begins with a goldfish-sized narwhal languishing in the confines of a fishbowl. When her young owner notices his pet gazing longingly out the window ("The view doesn't change much, but little narwhals who live in fishbowls have a lot of dreams"), he becomes concerned and calls up some friends to come over to cheer her up. Three children arrive, accompanied by their own unusual pets--giraffe, penguin, and bat. The animals and children decide to take the narwhal on a little adventure and put her bowl into a red wagon for a walk to town. Throughout, Yum's cheery colored-pencil and gouache palette allows the cartoon-style illustrations a levity that mitigates any sense of tragic captivity, but text and art combine to establish the limitations on the narwhal's outlook; one spread adopts a skewed, rounded visual perspective that emulates the narwhal's point of view, which supports the reader's sympathy for her plight. Although Mantchev eschews a Free Willy sort of ending, returning the narwhal in her bowl back to the house with the boy, the story culminates with a clever means of bringing broader glimpses of the world inside for her to enjoy. megan dowd lambert