The Whale Without A Tail

In many ways, Walter is just like the other young whales. But in one way—the way that seems to matter most—he is different. Walter was born without a tail. All the other young whales have tails, but since Walter does not, he is seen as different. And according to the other whales, different is not good. Different means Walter is not included when the other whales played tug-of-war. Different means he doesn’t get to race. His friends call him a tadpole or turtle, saying his tail is weak and Walter is slow. Walter knows better, of course. His tail does all sorts of amazing things, but the other whales never give him a chance to show them. One day, the ocean feels strangely quiet. Walter is the first to realize all his friends have been caught in a fisherman’s net. They desperately need his help, and for the first time, they see Walter for the amazing whale he is. Walter is a hero, even without his tail. It turns out it’s okay to be different because different can also mean special.

A child and a whale embark on a beautiful journey together in this lyrical, gorgeously illustrated picture book about friendship, hope, and love for the world around us in the vein of The Fisherman & the Whale and Cynthia Rylant’s Life. Where land becomes sky and sky becomes sea, I first saw the whale and the whale first saw me. A child joins a friendly whale for a magical journey of discovery. They sail the blue ocean, dance with dolphins, and tail-splash seagulls. But the child also sees an ocean filled with plastic trash. And that inspires a promise of help, for the whale and all earth’s creatures.

Every fancied chasing rainbows on the back of a humpback whale? Follow one boy's adventure as he escapes the gloominess of winter to discover a beautiful world, brimming with magic and colour.

From the author of The Hidden Lives of Owls, an exploration of the elusive lives of whales in the Pacific Ocean, home to orcas, humpbacks, sperm, blue, and gray whales. Leigh Calvez has spent a dozen years researching, observing, and probing the lives of the giants of the deep. Here, she relates the stories of nature's most remarkable creatures, including the familial orcas in the waters of Washington State and British Columbia; the migratory humpbacks; the ancient, deep-diving blue whales, the largest animals on the planet. The lives of these whales are conveyed through the work of dedicated researchers who have spent decades tracking them along their secretive routes that extend for thousands of miles, gleaning their habits and sounds and distinguishing peculiarities. The author invites the reader onto a small research catamaran maneuvering among 100-foot long blue whales off the coast of California; or to join the task of monitoring patterns of humpback whale movements at the ocean surface: tail throw, flipper slap, fluke up, or blow. To experience whales is breathtaking. To understand their lives deepens our connection with the natural world.

A young whale starts out simply enjoying krill and ketchup like anyone else before everything changes the day he finds out his tail looks a bit like a wellington boot and he realises that this is different from his classmates at school. Readers are invited to join Oslo as gets to know his friends and teachers, develops his understanding of the world around him and, more than anything, learns new things about himself. This delightful, thoughtful story combines empathy and excitement with humour and heartfelt honesty. Perfect for children aged 7-11 and great for adults too! Oslo the whale lives with his dad. He likes swimming, blowing water out of his blowhole, and eating krill and ketchup. Oslo is the only whale he knows whose tail looks a bit like a wellington boot. Not that it matters, but then again, Oslo's tail seems to be at the root of all kinds of unexpected events. Along the way, Oslo learns about a lot of things: goals, opposites, sharing, fairness and panic. But will his big moment end in catastrophe? Or might there be a joyous celebration? Reader opinions Oslo or The Whale Whose Tail Looks a Bit Like a Wellington Boot has been very positively received by its first wave of readers, young and old. The following quotes have been selected to be representative and to capture a range of aspects of the book, while avoiding spoilers: "Full of charming characters!" "Reading Oslo made me feel happy." "What I really like is the little nuggets of humor sprinkled in for the reader." "What a wonderful book. It reminded me of my childhood." " I enjoyed both the humour and the way you explain things." "I can highly recommend this lovely book." "It's rather funny." "I would agree the influence is Kafkaesque!" "It really is a sweet book." Reading level and audience Oslo is a chapter book written in deceptively simple language so that older primary school children should have no difficulty reading alone, while younger children from about 7 up can enjoy it at their own pace or reading together with an adult. While the book is accessible to younger age groups, middle grade readers will engage more with some of the themes and the multi-layered humour includes elements that grown-ups, particularly parents and teachers, will identify with. Oslo is a boy whale, but the book is aimed neither specifically at boys nor at girls. The abstract underwater setting in a school for whales makes it possible for the characters to simply be themselves. There are no hairstyles. There are no clothes. The whales are whales. Themes The approachable language helps young readers explore topics like fairness, selfishness and the fragility of happiness. The themes are discussed through the experience of the young whale protagonist, his schoolfriends, his teachers and his dad. The characters are united by their fallibility and an honest realisation that things tend to be rather complicated when you think about them. Being different and disability One central theme is the fact that our young whale's tail looks a bit like a wellington boot. The reader accompanies Oslo on his journey from his initial realisation that this is different to understanding the wider consequences and working out how this disability impacts his self-esteem and the development of his identity. As with other subjects addressed throughout the book, the issue is discussed honestly, yet positively, and from both Oslo's own perspective and the perspectives of those around him. There are no easy answers or miracle cures, but the reader is guided through the characters' thought-processes as they look for solutions to challenging situations.

Onboard a vessel that would make Jacques Cousteau green with envy, the Cat and Co. take to the high seas in search of whales, dolphins, and porpoises—those aquatic mammals known as cetaceans. While learning how cetaceans stay warm without hair, have teeth or baleen, swim in troops, spyhop, spin, breach, and see via ecolocation, kids are introduced to almost 20 different species—including sperm, right, humpback, and blue whales; Gulf, spectacled, and finless porpoise; and boto, common, hourglass, and bottlenose dolphins. A shipshape selection for summer reading! “The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library shows young readers that books can be entertaining and educational at the same time. This is a wonderful series!” —Barbara Kiefer, Ph.D., Charlotte S. Huck Professor of Children’s Literature, Ohio State University

Journey through uncharted literary waters and explore Melville’s epic in bold new light Come sail with I. We’re not taking the same trip, though you might recognize the familiar course. This time, the Pequod’s American voyage steers its course across the curvature of the Word Ocean without anyone at the helm. We are leaving one man and his madness on shore. Our ship overflows with glorious plurality—multiracial, visionary, queer, conflicted, polyphonic, playful, violent. But on this voyage something is different. Today we sail headless without any Captain. Instead of binding ourselves to the dismasted tyrant’s rage, the ship’s crew seeks only what we will find: currents teeming with life, a blue-watered alien globe, toothy cetacean smiles from vasty deeps. Treasures await those who sail without. This cycle of one hundred thirty-eight poems—one for each chapter in Moby-Dick, plus the Etymology, Extracts, and Epilogue—launches into oceanic chaos without the stabilizing mad focus of the Nantucket captain. Guided by waywardness and curiosity, these poems seek an alien ecopoetics of marine depths, the refraction of light, the taste of salt on skin. Directionless, these poems reach out to touch oceanic expanse and depth. It’s not an easy voyage, and not a certain one. It lures you forward. It has fixed its barbed hook in I. Sailing without means relinquishing goals, sleeping at the masthead, forgetting obsessions. I welcome you to trace wayward ways through these poems. Read them any way you can—back to front, at random, sideways, following the obscure promptings of your heart. It’s the turning that matters. It’s a blue wonder world that beckons.

Whale's Tails features parallel whaling tales told by four young friends who live in two different centuries. Two of the young men live in 2018, and the other two are alive in the 1850s. Both stories have meaningful and thought-provoking information for young people! College students Reggie and his friend Tom have signed on as research assistants for the summer. The research project is tagging humpback whales and tracking their travels. The boys are spending the summer on the Pacific Ocea