This jaunty tale of derring-do imagines Inky the octopus' real-life escape from the National Aquarium of New Zealand from Inky's point of view. The golden-hued fellow can see the ocean from his tank and wants nothing more than to explore its waters, though it would mean leaving his aquarium friends behind. One night the lid to his tank isn't secured, and the crafty critter gets his chance, oozing over its glass wall, down a drain in the floor, and out to the sea. Large-scale illustrations in bright watercolors pair with minimal text, making this easy to share with a group. Though the lines of rhyming text don't always scan, a refrain echoing Inky's desire to be free in the open sea anchors the story and offers support to young readers and listeners. The most interesting part of the book is actually its back matter, which not only gives a straightforward account of Inky's escape but also details the antics of other aquariums' octopuses and offers scintillating cephalopod facts. Who isn't a sucker for that?

Inky the octopus sings his tale.Longing for the excitement of the "open sea," a captive octopus describes its getaway. Basing her re-creation on an actual octopus's escape from the New Zealand Aquarium, in 2016, Guendelsberger imagines the dissonance between Inky's comfortable familiarity with aquarium life and his yearning to be free, finishing with his actual escape. The text is written in ballad meter, repeating variations on the refrain: "Out of this tank, I must break free. / I hear the ocean calling me!" Readers aloud may find some arrhythmic lines: "I've always liked eight-arm charades and seaweed hide-and-seek. / I've had fun playing gravel hockey and tentacle tag each week." More importantly, the first-person narrative anthropomorphizes this alien ocean invertebrate, attributing dreams, senses, and communication skills that are human but not likely appropriate for octopuses or even fish. (In contradiction to the endmatter entry, the correct plural is octopuses, not the occasional octopodes or the incorrect back-formation octopi.) In a highly unlikely conversation with his tankmate Blotchy, he invites the fish to accompany him into "the far and great unknown." The fish replies he would "rather stay / within his comfy home." Leonard's appealing cartoon illustrations reinforce this anthropomorphizing, with amusing expressions in Inky's humanoid eyes and even a bag of belongings hanging from one tentacle as he imagines his quest. All the humans shown seem to be white. Since the actual escape was nothing short of astonishing, the anthropomorphization serves to cheapen rather than ennoble the subject.Less implausible than Casey Lyell and Sebastià Serra's Inky's Great Escape (2017) but still unfortunate. (historical note, octopus facts, bibliography) (Picture book. 4-7)