Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 01/01/2022 Gr 3–6—An adorable introduction to one of the smallest food sources available for ocean dwellers. This book presents the life cycle of the krill, from birth in the depths of the ocean near Antarctica to transformation into a tasty meal for penguins, seals, bird, fish, and whales. Of course, one krill is a mere snack, so they are usually eaten in a very large quantities. A whale can eat a million or more krill in one bite. Soft watercolors effectively show the different stages of the krill as it eats plankton and other tiny organisms in order to grow and molt its shell, then eat and grow more. The story is told with gentle humor and ends with a helpful page of facts and further resources, as well as a link to an online game about krill. VERDICT An enjoyable and educational read suitable for upper elementary students.—Cynde Suite - Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 01/01/2022 Tavis, illustrator of Jacquie Sewell’s Whale Fall Café (2021), dives into another marine food source. The book follows the ever-popular (to predators, anyway) Antarctic krill from blobby egg to shrimplike maturity, where they are surrounded by “krillions” of fellow crustaceans and not a few hungry-looking seals, penguins, whales, and fish. Lilley makes jocular observations (“You look kind of buggy, but you’re not a bug. / You look kind of shrimpy, but you’re not a shrimp.”) and comments on successive growth stages, bioluminescence, and this keystone species’ role in the Southern Ocean’s food chain. “In other words, krill are really good at eating and krill are really good eatin’.” The lack of any view or mention of reproduction leaves a gap in the life cycle that the closing list of print and online resources may help to fill, and a lead at the end to an educational game called Krill Smackdown should have even more budding biologists reaching for their keyboards. - Copyright 2022 Booklist.