A piranha who dreams of dining in the finest restaurants? Not your usual fish tale! Samson doesn't want to be like the other piranhas, who eat the same boring food every day (depicted bloodlessly as fish bones), stick close to home, and enjoy their comfortable old routines. Samson doesn't want to be just another fish in the sea. He wants adventure—to explore and to swim upstream. But what Samson wants most of all is to eat "fine food in the fanciest restaurants." But what restaurant would welcome such a frightening customer, with his "fearsome features and terrible teeth"? So, wearing an elaborate disguise and making a reservation under the name Mr. Rana, he succeeds, until he suffers a costume malfunction and everyone scatters. Solution? Open his own restaurant and serve all of those other mask-wearing fish looking only for good food and a place to fit in. Styling Samson with enormous eyes and a cute underbite, Bentley's pen-and-ink illustrations manage to make a fearsome piranha look earnest and endearing as he seeks to be himself and find his place in the world. Attractive endpapers establish the theme with careful table settings awaiting schools of fishy customers. In the final spread, it isn't Samson wearing a disguise, and young readers will delight in recognizing just who that is behind the mask. Young readers will be hooked. (Picture book. 4-7)

A piranha who dreams of dining in the finest restaurants? Not your usual fish tale! Samson doesn't want to be like the other piranhas, who eat the same boring food every day (depicted bloodlessly as fish bones), stick close to home, and enjoy their comfortable old routines. Samson doesn't want to be just another fish in the sea. He wants adventure—to explore and to swim upstream. But what Samson wants most of all is to eat "fine food in the fanciest restaurants." But what restaurant would welcome such a frightening customer, with his "fearsome features and terrible teeth"? So, wearing an elaborate disguise and making a reservation under the name Mr. Rana, he succeeds, until he suffers a costume malfunction and everyone scatters. Solution? Open his own restaurant and serve all of those other mask-wearing fish looking only for good food and a place to fit in. Styling Samson with enormous eyes and a cute underbite, Bentley's pen-and-ink illustrations manage to make a fearsome piranha look earnest and endearing as he seeks to be himself and find his place in the world. Attractive endpapers establish the theme with careful table settings awaiting schools of fishy customers. In the final spread, it isn't Samson wearing a disguise, and young readers will delight in recognizing just who that is behind the mask. Young readers will be hooked. (Picture book. 4-7)

Toothy Samson is a fish out of water: his fellow piranhas are perfectly happy to eat -the same boring food day after day,- but Samson, an adventurous soul, dreams of gourmet delights like -luscious lily linguine and crispy kelp cakes.- He-s determined to eat at the swankiest spots in the ocean, but even when he wears a disguise (including one that suggests a Brooklyn artisanal pickle-maker crossed with Marie Antoinette) he-s quickly discovered, and the other diners flee, certain that they-re about to become dinner (-Piranha!- becomes the book-s refrain). Fortunately, Samson stumbles upon other carnivorous fish who are equally committed gourmands (and equally poor at disguises), and together they open a restaurant so good that everyone pretends to be a predator to get in. Although the book-s wrap-up isn-t as comically adroit as everything that leads up to it, Bentley-s (Little Penguin Gets the Hiccups) broadly cartooned cast, atmospheric aquatic settings (he-s especially good at depicting light streaming through the depths), and knowing winks at foodie culture make this a tasty morsel. Ages 4-8. Agent: John Rudolph, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Feb.)