Beginner Books
Illustrated
m^W- A \
YOUR NAME HERE)
}Whpr. Seuss And Friends
reading program
Kellogg Company
Helen Palmer,
graduate of Wel¬
lesley College and
Oxford Univer¬
sity, was a teacher
of English before
she became in¬
volved in the crea-
HELEN PALMER ^Qn )300^s for
children. She has since edited liter¬
ally dozens of successful juveniles
and written an even dozen of her
own.
Married to an eccentric writer, Theo.
LeSieg (himself a Beginner Book
author), Miss Palmer lives in Cali¬
fornia, raises eucalyptus citradora,
swims fearlessly into caves full of
lurking moray eels and devotes the
rest of her time to local civic proj¬
ects.
It would take a thousand pages to
quote all the warm, glowing tributes
written by teachers, librarians, chil¬
dren and literary critics about P. D.
Eastman and his first three Beginner
Books.
So let’s just say this: Everybody
loved P. D. Eastman’s first book,
SAM AND THE FIREFLY. They
loved him more when he did
ARE YOU MY MOTHER? Then
more and more because of his third
book, GO, DOG. GO! The love
for P. D. East¬
man has grown
and grown like
A FISH OUT OF
WATER. And
even Mr. Carp
won’t be able to
make it little
again.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2017 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/fishoutofwaterOOrand
By Helen Palmer
llustrated by P. D. Eastman
BEGINNER BOOKS
A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC.
A FISH OUT OF WATER
This title was originally catalogued by the Library of Congress as follows: Palmer,
Helen Marion. A fish out of water. Illustrated by P. D. Eastman. [New York] Beginner
Books [1961] 64 p. illus. 24 cm. (Beginner books, B-23) I. Title. PZ7.Pl855Fi
61-9579 ISBN 0-394-80023-0 ISBN 0-394-90023-5 (lib. bdg.)
© Copyright, 1961, by Helen Palmer. Copyright renewed 1989 by Theodor S. Geisel and
Mary L. Eastman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. Published in New York by Random House, Inc., and simultaneously in
Toronto, Canada, by Random House of Canada Limited. Manufactured in the United
States of America.
I said to Mr. Carp,
“I want him.
I like him.
And he likes me.
I will call him Otto.”
3
“Very well,” said Mr. Carp.
“Now I will tell you
how to feed him.”
4
Then Mr. Carp told me:
“When you feed a fish,
never feed him a lot.
So much and no more!
Never more than a spot,
or something may happen!
You never know what.”
5
Then I took Otto home.
I gave him some food.
I did not give him much.
Just one little spot!
6
But this did not make Otto happy.
He wanted more food.
He had to have more.
Poor Otto!
He just HAD to have more!
!
I knew what Mr. Carp
had told me:
“Never feed him a lot.
Never more than a spot!
Or something may happen.
You never know what.”
But I gave Otto all the food
in the box.
Then something DID happen.
My little Otto began to grow.
I saw him grow.
I saw him grow and grow.
Soon he was too big
for his little fish bowl.
MW
There was just one thing to do.
I put Otto into the flower bowl.
“There, Otto,” I said.
“This will hold you.”
12
But, no!
The flower bowl did not hold him.
Otto went right on growing!
This was not funny.
Not funny at all!
I grabbed the flower bowl.
I ran with it.
“Otto,” I said,
“I know just where to put you.
Then you will be all right.”
.
I put him in a big pot.
But Otto was not all right.
I saw him grow some more.
Very soon he was too big
for the pot.
15
I put him in pot after pot.
He was growing so fast.
Poor Otto!
My poor little fish!
Oh, why did I feed him so much?
16
“Otto,” I said,
“stop growing! Please!”
But Otto could not stop growing.
He was growing all the time.
Very soon I ran out of pots.
.# •-#*>. :.:f (IJ %£<%
TL f I
*
... . . ■ ", •. 1 / K - |
Otto had to have water.
There was just one thing to do.
I did it.
I grabbed him.
I grabbed him by the tail.
I ran with him.
Up to the tub!
The tub is big.
It can hold lots of water.
19
At last!
“There, Otto,” I said.
“This tub holds my father.
This tub holds my mother
So, it will hold you.”
But the tub did not
hold him at all.
He went right on growing.
“Oh, Otto,” I said,
“what can I do now?”
,1
N
"•'****
'******
Then — crash!
The door went down
Crash!
Otto went down.
I went down, too.
Oh, what a ride!
25
Down went the water
into the cellar.
And down went Otto, too.
I had to do something fast.
I grabbed the phone.
W"'
fj
r"~J .
’* S.
I called a policeman.
“Help! Help!” I said.
“I fed my fish too much.
Mr. Carp told me not to.
But I did!”
5
“What?” said the policeman.
“Mr. Carp told you not to
but you did? Too bad!
I will come at once.”
29
i
t
s
**>*»f^%
Mlim
i-^tffW**™***'Tv t.,.: " :<v,
.. ' '•: V • <> >«<*•*'•*
The policeman came.
“My fish went that way,” I said.
“He is down in the cellar.”
The policeman ran down with me.
“What a fish!” he said.
“He is much too big to
keep in a cellar.
We will have to get him out.”
32
We had to work and work
to get Otto out.
Poor Otto!
Oh, why did I feed him too much?
Mr. Carp told me
something would happen.
And it did. It did!
34
.
■ v .f.
*****■•-
Now we had Otto out of the cellar.
But now Otto had no water.
No water at all!
36
“A fish has to have water,”
I said to the policeman.
“We must take him to water.
Get help!
Call for help on the radio.”
The policeman called on the radio.
He called for the firemen.
“Help! Help!” he said.
“A boy has fed a fish too much!”
rv-zr-
“A boy has fed a fish too much?
We will come at once.”
39
' ■ V
The firemen came.
They all helped to get Otto up.
“But where can we take him?”
I asked. “Up town? Down town?”
“To the pool!”
yelled the firemen.
“To the pool!”
I yelled.
“And please hurry!”
43
They did hurry.
The fire truck with Otto
came right up to the pool.
The firemen yelled,
Every one get out of the pool!
This fish is going in.”
oo®*2.
Down into the pool went Otto.
Into the pool
with a big, big splash!
_jr[. ' .
s-\.:j;: •., T**
**&*■( *£&
******
■•■■•" ■'■■ PI
I»M**»*»*5
***** *****
fc|SPr«®,r •
Now I was happy.
Now, at last, my Otto had water.
Lots of water!
This big pool was just the thing.
This big pool would hold him.
,_y=v»"
■ ■ A;'’’'1*
*’’***♦,
2? <■««**,
But Otto went right on growing.
And no one wanted Otto in the pool.
They did not like Otto at all.
“You take that fish out of here!”
they yelled.
is
48
I yf ifSk.
• 2 /*, jr M ffjWt* ijj
mI It
ftliy j| iter If! ||/^
There was just one thing to do.
I did it. I ran to the phone.
I called Mr. Carp.
“Please, please help me!” I said.
“I fed Otto too much.”
50
“Oh, dear!” said Mr. Carp.
“So you fed him too much!
I knew you would.
I always say ‘don’t’
but you boys always do.
Yes, I will come.”
51
Then Mr. Carp came.
He had a black box in his hand.
He had a lot of other things, too.
“What are you going to do, Mr. Carp?”
I asked him.
But Mr. Carp said nothing.
He just went right up to the pool.
He took his black box with him
and all the other things, too.
SPLASH!
Mr. Carp jumped into the pool.
54
SPLASH!
Now Otto went down, too!
All I could see was his tail.
I could not see Mr. Carp at all.
What was going on down there?
What were they doing down
there in the water?
56
Now I could see nothing.
Not Otto.
Not Mr. Carp.
Nothing at all.
Would I see my Otto again?
Would I see Mr. Carp again?
“Mr. Carp, Mr. Carp!”
I yelled. “What are you doing?
Are you all right?”
;'»■<
.{ fMtl
Then up jumped Mr. Carp.
In his hand was a little fish bowl.
In the bowl was my Otto!
Mr. Carp had made him little again.
“Don’t ask me how I did it,” he said.
“But here is your fish.”
, ■*&«**< ^
“And from now on,” said Mr. Carp,
“PLEASE don’t feed him too much.
Just so much, and no more!”
Now that is what I always do.
Now I feed Otto
so much and no more.
Never more than a spot
or something may happen.
And now I know what!
A Fish
Out Of
Water
By Helen Palmer
A boy fed his goldfish too much!
What happened? Well, the fish
grew and grew. And the story
grows funnier and funnier right
along with the fish.
Like all BEGINNER BOOKS,
this one will prove helpful in devel¬
oping reading skill. It is written
with ONLY 176 DIFFERENT
WORDS — the majority of which
a child learns in the first grade.
The theme is skillfully evolved to
ensure the word repetition neces¬
sary in building a “sight” vocabu¬
lary. Yet these word repetitions
never become drills — they are basic
to the plot so that a child will feel
he is reading only for fun.
The delightful illustrations by the
well-known author-illustrator P. D.
Eastman are wondrously humor¬
ous and yet, because they go hand
in hand with the text, serve hand¬
somely as a guide and aid for the
child who may have difficulty in
learning to read all by himself.
fishoutofwaterOOrand
fishoutofwaterOOrand
r ■\
The Beginner Book Story
From this magically right beginning
came the concept of Beginner Books,
exacting blends of words and pic¬
tures that encourage children to
read — all by themselves. Hailed by
elementary educators and remedial
reading specialists, these enor¬
mously popular books are now used
in schools and libraries throughout
the English-speaking world.
$4.99
679 84486-4
-
