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| Published: | 1961 |
| Author: | Helen Palmer Geisel |
| Illustrator: | P.D. Eastman |
| Characters: | The Boy, Otto, Mr. Carp |
| Setting: | {{{setting}}} |
A Fish out of Water is a 1961 American children's book written by Helen Palmer Geisel, and illustrated by P. D. Eastman. The book is based on a short story by Palmer's husband Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), "Gustav the Goldfish", which was published with his own illustrations in Redbook magazine in June 1950.
Plot[]
The story is about a boy who buys a fish from a pet shop. The boy names the fish Otto. The 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 disobeys the instructions and overfeeds Otto, Otto outgrows his fishbowl. This results in the boy moving him into several increasingly large containers and then ending up with a bathtub, which Otto overgrows, thus flooding the house.
The boy decides to call a police officer, who then decides to call the fire department for help. They take Otto down to the local pool, where they drop the fish in, causing him to expand to the size of the pool and scare off all of the swimmers. Realizing his mistake, the boy calls Mr. Carp, who 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 Otto below. Eventually, Mr. Carp brings the fish back up to the surface returned to its normal size. Refusing to say how he did it, he tells the boy to never overfeed Otto again, and the boy finally obeys.
Notes[]
"Gustav the Goldfish", the short story that served as the basis for this book, was collected along with six other stories by Seuss originally published in magazines, in the 2011 collection The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories.[1][2]