"The ocean's filled with friendly fish / but not the thing that's missing."Newly hatched Milo is a friendly yellow octopod festooned with black stripes, and he's on an ocean quest-he just doesn't know what he's missing. Brightly colored fish with expressive eyebrows swim beneath stylized watercolor waves, forming a festive background for Milo's explorations. Cozy deep-sea caves, coral reefs, shipwrecks, and tide pools all feature newfound, nameless friends-but not whatever he seeks. At last: "Milo wakes, / alone no more! / His family has found / him on the ocean floor." A trio of candy-colored octopodes fills the void in Milo's heart, and the little family of four-the perfect number for an octopod group hug-depart, haloed in tropical teal waters, and will leave readers smiling with them. Author/illustrator Kousky's gentle verse guides readers through cheerful double-page illustrations of varied shores, where the greatest dangers are playful sharks and a startled plumber. Translucent, layered watercolors make an inviting ocean from surface to seafloor, full of colorful, anthropomorphic fishy faces, charmingly stylized and expertly rendered. It's a simple and heartwarming story all around.Anyone would be a sucker for this little octopus. (Picture book. 3-6)

This quest story follows Milo, a baby octopus, as he searches everywhere from the bottom of the sea to tide pools on the shore and even into a toilet bowl for ll, he's not sure what. After hatching, Milo explores the ocean floor, busy with comically expressive sea creatures. He rides the ocean currents and plays hide-and-seek with sharks. As he expands his search to the shore and then back to the ocean depths, the recurring question is, "So what is Milo missing?" Kousky's (Lawrence, the Bunny Who Wanted to Be Naked, 2020) mixed-media illustrations are terrific at representing ocean currents with curving lines and showing Milo's initial isolation by placing him in white space to the side of sea denizens set among the larger blue portion of the page. Finally, Milo sleeps and wakes up to find three other baby octopuses around him, leading him to realize that what was missing all along was his family. Charming.