Bubbles the Zooting, Tooting Manatee

Bubbles is a manatee, a herbivorous mammal living on sea grass. Her aunties give lessons on moving gracefully through the water using French ballet terms to encourage elegance and beauty of movement. The French vocabulary is translated in little text bubbles on the page.

But Bubbles has discovered her love of speed and uses her farts to propel herself into all directions, often upsetting other marine life. Her aunties banish her to ‘time out’ and Bubbles retreats to sulking in the seagrass. But when an alligator threatens the family of manatees, Bubble’s special talents save the day. Her aunties realise they need to let Bubbles use her abilities and be herself. Children who enjoy toilet humour will laugh at this farty tale. Bright colourful illustrations showcase the movement and actions of the manatees.

The end page includes fun facts about manatees, and it could be a good activity to sort the fact from the fiction in this picture book. For example, since when are manatees pink? And yes, manatees do use farts to adjust their buoyancy.