Little Gnouf and Mirabelle\u2014two \u201cGnoufs,\u201d who look like pale-skinned children with snouts and animallike ears\u2014are thrilled to be visiting the ocean for the first time. The pals are marveling at their surroundings when Mirabelle hears with her \u201cmagical ears\u201d a far-off cry for help: It\u2019s a baby whale trapped in a fishing net on the shore. Once Little Gnouf and Mirabelle manage to get the whale into the water, the friends climb onto the creature\u2019s back and offer words of encouragement, which ultimately helps the calf reunite with his mom. The duo\u2019s improvised efforts to save the whale\u2014they make ropes from the fishing net and get an assist from some seagulls\u2014are compelling, though there\u2019s a whiff of the cutesy about the story: \u201cLittle Gnouf and Mirabelle rushed to the baby whale because Gnoufs loved the earth and all its creatures.\u201d \u201cMommy whale was so happy to have her baby safe, she sang a joyful song that sent shivers through the sea.\u201d But the illustrations make up for it; Grimard has a light hand, creating willowy tableaux and hewing to a beachy palette except where sea life is concerned\u2014then it\u2019s open season on glorious color.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Little Gnouf and Mirabelle\u2014two \u201cGnoufs,\u201d who look like pale-skinned children with snouts and animallike ears\u2014are thrilled to be visiting the ocean for the first time. The pals are marveling at their surroundings when Mirabelle hears with her \u201cmagical ears\u201d a far-off cry for help: It\u2019s a baby whale trapped in a fishing net on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6026"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}