The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen, pictures by Dan Hanna.

Mr. Fish swims around with a permanent scowl on his face.  He won’t even try to cheer up because that just the way he is.  He doesn’t know how to be anything but dreary and dull and dour.  As fish after fish try to cheer him up, he just becomes more and more dismal until he is upside down flopped on a rock at the bottom of the sea.  That is where a beautiful silver fish finds him and kisses him.  And suddenly his attitude changes.

Readers will be drawn into the book by the rollicking rhyme and the repetition, making this the perfect book to share with toddlers and preschoolers.  Even now, weeks after reading it my sons launch into the chorus from the book with great gusto on the spur of the moment.  The illustrations will project well to a room and by reading it to a class you will bring them out of their own pout-pouts.

Recommended for toddler story times, this book may not be deep literature, but it is great fun.