Swimmy

Lionni, Leo. Swimmy. New York: Scholastic, 1963.

Swimmy is another oldie but goodie picture books that I share each year with my first graders. Leo Lionni’s illustrations, which won him a Caldecott honor, were created using a stamping technique which could be re-created in the classroom. Instructions for one such project can be found here. 

Swimmy tells the tale of a school of small red fish with one black fish. Swimmy is the black fish. He loses his first school when a giant fish eats them all. Swimmy swims the ocean until he finds another school of red fish to join. He convinces them to explore the ocean with him in a different way. This really is a book about team work.

I paired this book with Inch by Inch for an activity about literary elements – character, setting, problem, solution, and ending. I had hoped to do a Venn diagram comparing the two books but we ran out of time.

Swimmy is available from Amazon. Thanks for using my affiliate link which helps support this children’s literature blog.