4 Reasons To Adore the Adventures with Finn and Skip Series

A series is a key tool for parents and teachers to promote kids’ engagement with books. Familiar characters and story structure give readers a jump on reading comprehension. Finding a new series to love offers an easy target when searching for your next great read. Snapping up new releases makes kids feel like they have the inside scoop on their favorite book series. In Brendan Kearney’s Adventures with Finn and Skip series, readers love following fisherman Finn and his faithful canine sidekick Skip on their journeys. Here are four reasons your family or classroom should hop aboard Finn’s fishing skiff and join in the adventures:

1. The spirit of adventure is contagious.

The time-honored idea that books can take readers places is one of the best reasons to dive into an excellent read. Some titles are better at inspiring us to venture along more than others, and this series does it well. Each day, Finn packs his gear, puts on his Wellington boots, and sets out for adventure on foot, by fishing boat, bike, hang glider, or dogsled. Let’s all learn from Finn.

2. Brendan Kearney’s artwork is fantastic.

Finn is the grandpa you’d love to have, with his Santa-esque beard, jaunty fishing cap, and can-do attitude. With their beady eyes and geometric shapes, Skip and all the animals the pair encounter on their travels are equally adorable. Beyond the endearing characters, the illustrations in this series give young readers tons to notice. They can’t help but get outraged when the characters discover scenes like an ocean full of trash or a desolate, deforested section of rainforest, rendered in just the right amount of detail.

3. Readers will feel inspired to care for the environment.

In Fish, Finn and Skip collect a boatful of trash from the ocean. As soon as they run aground on the beach, children rush to help them unload. In Bee, Finn and his grandchildren eagerly learn from a beekeeper how to protect the bee population. As Finn and friends take action to help the environment in each book, the text shares straightforward facts about why that work is essential and concrete ways readers can help. This combination of a compelling story with kid-friendly information is highly effective — and makes the books appeal to a wide age range, too. Families and classrooms can refer to the characters’ efforts as they engage in real-life environmental activism.

4. Talking about climate change with kids can be challenging but necessary.

It’s pretty straightforward to talk to young children about littering, but finding the right words for discussing climate change gets trickier. Plus, for many of us (adults, too), the more we understand about climate change, the more anxiety-producing it can be. Whether it’s learning how deforestation affects animals in Forest or how global warming leads to polar ice melt in Arctic, relatable stories like the Adventures with Finn and Skip series are valuable entry points for making climate change — and the collective work we must do to protect our planet — part of everyday conversations with children.