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By Ashley Keating 

Before Mr. Fish: An Under-the-Sea Adventure became a children’s book, it was just a bedtime story my grandfather aka (Poppy) told a long time ago. 

Poppy moved to Harrison at age six, when he was in first grade. His years growing up there included playing on a Harrison basketball team in grade school and then raising his family. He also served two years in the United States Army, stationed in Greenland.

To me, he is the grandfather who loved the beach and took us fishing. Some of my childhood memories with him include catching crabs in Cape May. Looking back, the ocean setting of Mr. Fish feels right at home alongside those memories.

Poppy created the story himself and first told it to his daughters when they were little. Years later, he told it to his grandchildren. Although my mother had heard the story as a child, I learned it directly from him.

During those sleepovers, long car rides and days at the beach, he would tell my brother Jake and I the story of Mr. Fish, and we absolutely loved it every time he told it. There was no printed book to open. The story came from Poppy, and hearing him tell it was part of what made it special.

Now that I am a mother of two boys, I have begun sharing that same story with my own children. Telling it again made me want to preserve it in a form our family could keep and return to for years to come.

That wish became Mr. Fish: An Under-the-Sea Adventure, adapted from Poppy’s original story. The book follows Ashley and her little brother, Jake, as they meet a friendly fish who takes them beneath the waves. Along the way, they meet Mr. Crab, Mr. Lobster and Ms. Clam, explore together and play hide-and-seek before returning home.

The project began as a family keepsake—a way to honor Poppy and give his story a lasting place on our children’s bookshelves. Recently, I was able to give him a finished copy, bringing the story back to the person who first imagined it.

Sharing the book with other families gives this childhood memory a new chapter. My hope is that parents, grandparents and children will enjoy reading it together and perhaps be reminded of stories within their own families.

For our family, every reading carries a connection to Poppy: his imagination, our sleepovers and a little fish who has traveled from his daughters’ childhoods into the lives of his great-grandchildren. 

The book is available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/47nWRSC