A Fish Out of Water (book)

A Fish Out of Water is a children's book by Helen Palmer Geisel, and illustrated by P. D. Eastman. The book is based on a short story by Palmer's husband Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss), "Gustav the Goldfish", which was published with his own illustrations in Redbook magazine in June 1950.^[1]

The story is about a boy who buys a fish from a pet shop. The pet shop owner, "Mr. Carp," gives the boy instructions on how to care for the fish, including strict feeding instructions: "Never feed him a lot. Never more than a spot! Or something may happen. You never know what." When the boy ignores these instructions out of compassion for his new pet, the fish begins to outgrow the fishbowl which leads the kid to move him into several different vases and a bathtub until the house fills up with water.

The boy assists help from a police officer and the fire department who help him take the fish down to the local pool. There, they drop the fish in causing it to expand to the size of the pool in the process scaring all the swimmers. Unsure what to do, the boy calls Mr. Carp. Mr. Carp is not surprised as boys always ignore his feeding instructions, and he comes as quickly as possible. Mr. Carp dives into the pool and pulls the fish below. Eventually Mr. Carp brings the fish back up to the surface returned to its normal size—he refuses to say how he did it—and tells the boy to never overfeed him again. So, the boy decides after the adventures he had that day that he will never overfeed his fish again.

Notes

"Gustav the Goldfish", the short story that served as the basis for this book, was published along with six other stories by Seuss published in Redbook magazine, as The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories in 2011.

References