Discover Your Inner Hermit Crab

Book excerpt: The comic strip Sherman’s Lagoon appears in more than 200 newspapers in 30 countries and in six languages. Toomey’s wonderful strip combines the upbeat tone of under-the-sea fun, with a real-life look that enlightens and entertains. Jim Toomey's environmentally aware comic strip, Sherman's Lagoon, appears in 150 newspapers in 30 countries and in 6 languages. Inside this latest cartoon collection, Discover Your Inner Hermit Crab, more than 42 weeks of Sherman's Lagoon stand ready to transport readers to an imaginary lagoon near the South Pacific island of Kapupu in the Palauan archipelago of Micronesia, where a cast of coral-reef critters battles the encroachment of the hairless beach apes with their so-called civilized human ways. Inhabitants of this nautical neighborhood include Sherman, an always-hungry-but-otherwise-typical great white shark; his witty, pearl-wearing wife, Megan; friendly Fillmore the turtle; geeky fish Ernest; macho hermit crab Hawthorne; and salty old Captain Quigley, who remains vengeful having lost his leg to Sherman. Lauded for promoting marine conservation, Toomey has been described as a "breath of fresh water" by the Washington Post and designated as an Environmental Hero by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in recognition of his efforts to protect and preserve the nation's environment.