I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Now, let me pre-face this by saying that this book is super adorable. The art, the story told via the art, and the message is just precious. Definitely a book that a first grader, especially one that loves learning about animals or loves ocean life, would enjoy. I was surprised by how much I laughed while reading this book as we followed Rosie while she tried to get back her lunch box from that pesky seagull, and brought some immense chaos to the aquarium in the process. The artist - who is also the author - does such an excellent job at conveying emotion and story through a visual medium. The colors were vibrant and eye-catching, and there wasn't a place I didn't enjoy looking throughout the pages. Alas, I failed abominably at following Bubbles the Octopus on their escape journey and finding the 20 turtles, but I did love learning the food factoids and the names of fishes at the end of the book.
There was one or two spots though where I had issues, and this is why I bumped my rating from a 5 star to a 4 star. First, there was a scene where something was supposed to be conveyed regarding the Otters. It was easy enough to tell that something was wrong and Rosie was going to help, but what was wrong wasn't adequately expressed through the art that time. I had no idea what they were looking for until Rosie found it and that shouldn't be the case. It made me feel like I missed something so I even flipped back to check except I hadn't. Second, light font colors on white backgrounds or white font colors on light backgrounds should never be done. There were whole parts where I couldn't read the text or had to lean in, and squint, so much that it hurt my eyes. Mind you as well that this was an e-ARC which was mostly going to be read on a tablet or a computer or a phone which makes such text even more difficult to read. Perhaps this isn't an issue for the physical edition, but it should be taken into account for digital releases as it's definitely an issue.
Those two things aside, this was a really cute and enjoyable book.