The Fintastic Fishsitter-a young reader’s guide to Zombie Goldfish

Our 6 year old likes reading My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish. More accurately, he likes having it read to him-and then spending some time alone with the book so that he can read it at his own pace. The concept of a zombie goldfish who can hypnotize anything with his eyes, a vampire kitten named Fang, two young boys and their respective tween brothers is the stuff of young reader dreams. The Fintastic Fishsitter is the tale of Sami, Pradeep’s little sister who is helping him and Tom by fishsitting Frankie, the zombie goldfish. This is also more of a picture book, with very few words, full color illustrations and the same evil kitten, villainous brother, madcap story that is designed for kids that have not yet graduated to reading on their own or chapter books.

The Fintastic Fishsitter is the book that our 6 year old can read with ease-and without any help. He wants to be able to read some of the Zombie Goldfish books on his own, but he’s not there yet. This is also the book that his younger 4 year old brother likes to look at for the wacky pictures. Because it’s a character that his older brother reads it has the incalculable value of being cool to older kids.

In The Fintastic Fishsitter Sammi, having been given clear instruction on everything, watches over Frankie for the afternoon.  Fang sneaks up, Frankie tries to hypnotize them and Pradeep and Tom come back at the end of the book with ice cream. Along the way there are the usual zany stunts that accompany Zombie Goldfish, except these are on more of a visual scale with cat and fish gags.

This is a great book for families with children who are bridging the young reader to picture book audience. Either the older one can easily read it and therefore has confidence to explore newer chapter books or their younger sibling is interested because they recognize the names of the characters. Having said that, the premise if clever enough to engage toddlers to pre-readers who are simply looking for a nice good-night book. In that regards The Fintastic Fishsitter works well too with big text, pages full of illustrations and wit. The Fintastic Fishsitter is written by Mo O’Hara with illustrations by Marek Jagucki.