Zachariah OHora's picture books Stop Snoring, Bernard! and No Fits, Nilson! center on animals and silliness. Whalesong: The True Story of the Musician Who Talked to Orcas centers on animals, minus the silliness, although OHora cushions his serious message with merriment in this true tale of compassion, animal rights, and the power of music.
In 1971, flutist Paul Horn and his two young sons liked to visit the two orcas at the aquarium near their home on British Columbia's Victoria Island. On one visit they encountered Dr. Paul Spong, who was playing recorded classical music in an effort to communicate with the whales. The next day, Paul Horn played his flute for the orcas, who seemed to move with the music; some days later, they were singing along ("Eeeeeeettttttsssshhhhhh!"). After one of the orcas died, the other was despondent until Paul's flute playing seemed to revive its spirits. The book's final spread declares that the two Pauls "helped people see how much orcas suffer in captivity" and that whales should be studied in the ocean, "where they belong."
Whalesong is written with a bubbly buoyancy (regarding Paul Horn's surname: "It's sort of funny that he prefers to play the flute!") and a hippie vibe that matches the book's early-1970s setting. OHora's digitally fine-tuned pencil-sketch art abounds with vibrant greens and sunflower yellow, and when bearded, tunic-wearing Paul and his kids aren't sitting cross-legged on the ground, they're dancing as if no one is watching. As conservation books for kids go, Whalesong may be the grooviest. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author