Cook, Bernadine. The Little Fish That Got Away. Illustrated by Crockett Johnson. William R. Scott, 1956.

This little book was published the year before I was born, in hardcover and then in a paperback edition from Scholastic. Then it went out of print at some point, and for a long time, the old Scholastic paperbacks were all that could be found. Then, HarperCollins published a new edition in 2005 and again in 2019, and now it’s readily available, new and used at reasonable prices for the used books.

If the cover reminds you of The Carrot Seed and Harold and the Purple Crayon, that’s because Crockett Johnson illustrated all three. Crockett Johnson was the pen name for author, cartoonist, and painter David Johnson Leisk. He was married to children’s author Ruth Krauss, who wrote The Carrot Seed and many other picture books. Johnson’s little round faced boys with the big eyes are iconic, easily recognizable in this book about a boy who goes fishing–and about the fish that he caught and the one that got away.

“Once upon a time there was a boy who liked to go fishing. . . He went fishing every day. But he never, no never, got any fish. All he ever did catch was a bad cold. But ONE day . . .”

The story goes on to tell about the boy’s adventures with a GREAT GREAT big fish, a GREAT big fish, a BIG fish, and finally a little fish. Can you guess which one got away?

The story is repetitive, which children love. Of course, it lends itself to being read aloud. I can get a little tired of repeating the same phrases over and over again for each of the boy’s attempts at catching a fish, but I haven’t met a child yet who gets tired of the repeating choruses. And the ending, which escapes the repetitive cycle, is funny every time.

The Little Fish That Got Away is a Picture Book Preschool selection. It can be seen as teaching tool for learning about relative sizes of things, but I wouldn’t suggest pointing that aspect out to little children. Let them enjoy the story and pick up on the “math” and measurements as they listen. Children absorb learning better if they are not force fed.

You can also check out The Little Fish That Got Away from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.