Wednesday lived in a fishbowl.
It was the only home she knew.
Troy Howell and Richard Jones have created the most beautiful, gentle story of a captive whale who longs for ‘a calm bit of blue’ amidst the hustle and bustle of a busy, city.
Everything circled around her.
People – flurrying, hurrying, worrying.
Traffic – wheeling, pealing, squealing.
Her name is Wednesday and most of her time was spent drifting and watching the world go by. When she had enough strength she would leap as high as she could and find the blue just beyond the city. The more she thought about the blue, the more leaps she made. People thought she was performing her leaps for them.
One day a little girl tapped on the glass and told Wednesday:
“But you don’t belong in there.
You belong in the sea!”
Wednesday thought about what the little girl had said. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, she couldn’t leap. What was the difference between her fishbowl home and the sea she knew nothing about? Wednesday wanted to stop thinking about the sea but ‘she ached to see it’.
Up, up Wednesday leaped, higher than before.
So high, she leaped beyond the bowl.
Wednesday’s tail caught the rim and the bowl toppled over. Wednesday was carried by the gushing water all the way down the avenue and all the way to the sea.
She plunged into it.
She swam and swam and swam.
She skimmed and soared,
spouted and dived…And for the first time in her life, she sang.
And when she found someone just like her, who welcomed her to the middle of the sea, Wednesday found out the sea was exactly where she belonged.
Several reviewers suggest this book speaks to all of us who long for something else. Perhaps so, but overwhelmingly this book reflects the sad reality for the many animals kept in solitary, unsuitable environments.
Whale in a Fishbowl is a really important children’s book. It is an advocate for keeping wildlife in the wild and teaching children the importance of seeing beyond the leaps and applause to the fact that these animals should be in their own habitats and not inside the glass walls and cages that their parents pay entry fees to visit.
For more information about Morgan, the killer whale, kept in deplorable conditions in a Tenerife amusement park, please visit http://www.freemorgan.org.
Morgan provides the motivation behind this blog. No child should be encouraged to visit animals in captivity for purposes of ‘education’ and ‘entertainment’.
