Field Trip to the Ocean Deep by John Hare (review)

It's another day at a futuristic school. Bright yellow buses—er, conveyances—are pulled up beside the school's multilevel pods and underwater outbuildings, and a class bound for a field trip heads out on a submersible, which drops anchor on the sea floor and disgorges pressure-suited kids and chaperones. There's no text, and no need for it, as we follow the kids marveling at squid, crustaceans, and gas vents. Naturally, there's one field tripper who strays off alone, and while the student examines a chest balanced on a wrecked ship, the plank cracks and the kid drops into a deep crevice, landing amid ancient ruins. Affixing a headlamp to the top of a column in hope of signaling to chaperones, the kid waits patiently. A striped sea creature is mighty interested in the child's camera, and soon the two are taking snaps until an adult returns. Back in the submersible, the kids have shed their helmets and our photographer is revealed to be a dark-skinned boy, who's now the star of the show with documentation of his unexpected undersea adventure. The cast of this wordless picture book is as rounded and friendly as a Playmobil adventure set, and with simple backdrops that can easily inspire paper and crayon crafts, group play and storytelling are natural offshoot activities. The protagonist's snapshots are captioned, and a pair of labeled black and white drawings of the submersible and a pressure suit are included—a nice touch for kids who insist that books really must have some words.