Whale EyesA Memoir About Seeing and Being Seen
Review posted August 15, 2025.
Penguin Workshop, 2025. 298 pages.
Review written August 11, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
This book will literally change your perspective.
It's not often that I have to order additional copies of a memoir published for kids because of so many holds, but that happened with Whale Eyes. What a creative and fascinating book! Written by a documentary filmmaker about his own childhood, Whale Eyes shows you what it's like to have strabismus and exotropia - by playing with the format and illustrations in this book. You'll be turning the book upside-down and even folding a page. (Do it gently if you're using a library copy!) And you'll begin to understand what it's like to see things through Whale Eyes.
Most people's brains fuse images from our two eyes. But James was born with eyes that don't track together - so his brain compensates by alternating which eye he sees out of. And when his brain switches between eyes, that makes the image jump. Which makes reading extremely difficult. Or playing tee-ball - He tells the story of being the first kid the adults had ever seen strike out at tee-ball.
And when people see his misaligned eyes - they don't know where to look. So they look away. Or they stare, trying to figure out what's wrong with him. Neither one is good for connecting with people.
So this book is about helping people understand, and telling people where to look - at the eye that's looking at them - so that we can make connections. He coined the term "Whale eyes" because we can only look at one of a whale's eyes at a time - yet that doesn't bother anyone.
There's a point in the book where he asks the reader to take an intermission and watch a documentary about his condition that he made for the New York Times. I'd provide a link to that video - except watch it as an intermission, after you've been prepared, and I think it will hit all the harder.
He finishes up the book with some things he's learned from making documentaries - things about making connections and catching people's interests. He brings people together instead of pushing them apart.
This book is written for middle grade kids - but there is no age limit for liking and being fascinated by this book. I pushed a couple of my coworkers to check it out, and I hope this review will get it more readers. It will open your eyes to another way of looking at the world. Literally.