The Escape Artist: A True Story of Octopus Adventure

Octopus Inky, known IRL for his 2016 escape from a New Zealand aquarium, is shown here as an eight-armed marvel with undulating, mottled pink tentacles; a prodigiously playful intellect; and a restless heart. “Aquarium living was easy,” writes Hanson (Star and the Maestro) in crisply rhyming lines, “and Inky felt safe and well-fed./ But a tank can’t contain an octopus brain,/ and questions still swam in his head.” Inky contemplates his fellow aquarium inhabitants, and the faces that peer at him through glass each day, but most of all wonders, “Could an octopus live in a tank without walls?/ And where might he find such a place?” Digital images by Bernstein (Sinclair, the Velociraptor Who Thought He Was a Chicken), which incorporate hand-painted textures, have a wonderful sense of extravagance, portraying Inky with soulful, keenly observant eyes, and a personality and form so expansive that he barely fits within the page. The “adventure” that made the octopus into a real-life global sensation is depicted in a splendid sequence: as the other aquatic creatures look on in amazement, Inky climbs out of his tank, slides across the floor, and daintily lifts a drain lid, slipping through it to the sea and a life of freedom. This should be cephalopod catnip for readers who are just beginning to feel the stirrings of independence, ingenuity, and curiosity about worlds waiting outside their own walls. More about Inky concludes. Ages 4–8. (July)