Suitabook

The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish

Chloe Savage

Reading: Read it slowly as a picture-led mystery. Pause before turning pages to predict what may appear, then revisit the spreads to notice the crew’s routines, the ship’s spaces and underwater details.
Themes: Curiosity and persistence: Dr Morley has researched one legendary jellyfish for years and leads a crew into Arctic waters to search for it. The book’s stance on this remains unclear.
Seeing beyond the obvious: The crew encounters Arctic animals and landscapes, while the illustrations reveal that the jellyfish has been following them. The visual design encourages readers to inspect scenes closely and notice information that the searching crew may overlook.
Scale and the natural world: The crew travels among orcas, whales, narwhals, ice shelves, aurorae and other Arctic features; people are depicted as tiny beside the animals. The artwork appears to emphasise the scale and richness of the environment rather than presenting the crew as dominant within it.
Worth knowing: Some scenes may bring mild suspense: storms, vast ice shelves, a polar bear and the possibility of an elusive creature finding the explorers. The ending’s emotional intensity is not clear.