Twelve Daring Grays: A Whale Migration Adventure

Dramatic verse narrates the expedition of a dozen gray whales who take an alternate migration route in an illuminating picture book from Nickum (This Book Is Full of Holes) and MacKay (The Bunny Ballet). The wide-eyed account opens in February as more than 20,000 gray whales depart Baja, Calif., beginning “a long, hard,/ necessary journey.” Among this group, 12 have a “daring plan”—while the others continue their two-month-plus trip north to the Arctic, the featured dozen “peel off,/ one by one,” to head elsewhere. Vivid imagery describes their 170-mile detour to the Salish Sea, a water body in British Columbia and Washington State. Venturing “past rocks as barnacled as their skin,” they arrive at a shallowly submerged mudflat where they risk getting stuck to scrape the floor for “millions of ghost shrimp./ A hurried,/ exhilarating feast” that helps them grow strong enough to continue northward. Photographs of cut paper and mixed-media scenes have a luminous, diorama-like depth that immerses readers in the subjects’ natural habitats. Eventually, the intrepid shrimp-eaters catch up with their fellow cetaceans, and prose comes full circle, asking whether a new generation will be among those who make the detour in this wonder-filled portrait of adapting mammals. A note, “Dining with Grays,” concludes. Ages 5–8. Author’s agent: Lynnette Novak, Seymour Agency. Illustrator’s agent: Emily Van Beek, Folio Literary. (Feb.)