BookView Review

A sassy amateur detective dives headfirst into trouble in Moryto’s buoyant picture book. Curious Clam has lost his prized pearl, and Sassy needs little encouragement to take the case. What follows plays like an aquatic game of telephone, as one eccentric ocean dweller points her toward another and the trail carries her into increasingly peculiar corners of the sea. 

The episodic setup suits the story well. Each stop introduces a fresh comic personality and sends Sassy swimming toward the next surprise, giving the mystery an easy momentum. Moryto clearly relishes language: alliterative names, fishy jokes, riddles, and bouncy rhymes turn the journey into a performance-ready read-aloud. Sassy herself is delightfully theatrical, meeting setbacks with enough attitude and determination to keep even the darker stretches playful. 

There is also an appealing unpredictability to the company Sassy acquires. What starts as a simple favor for a clam becomes a much bigger excursion, and the accumulating cast makes the adventure increasingly lively without overcomplicating its central mystery. Meritxell Andreu’s illustrations make excellent use of the changing seascape, moving from bustling, candy-colored reefs to dimmer, stranger depths and cavernous spaces. Expressive faces heighten the jokes, while Sassy’s unmistakable pink presence commands each spread. 

Cheerful, energetic, and packed with undersea personality, this is a quest made for animated storytime reading.

***