In the summer of 1851, with encouragement and ideas provided by his family, an inventor builds a working submarine and takes his family for a ride under Lake Michigan. Includes notes about Lodner Phillips, the real inventor on whom the story is based. Full color.

In the summer of 1851, with encouragement and ideas provided by his family, an inventor builds a working submarine and takes his family for a ride under Lake Michigan. Includes notes about Lodner Phillips, the real inventor on whom the story is based. Full color.

Candace Fleming and illustrator Boris Kulikov pair up to tell a fun story about a real submarine inventor in Papa's Mechanical Fish

• Clink! Clankety-bang! Thump-whirr!* That's the sound of Papa at work. Although he is an inventor, he has never made anything that works perfectly, and that's because he hasn't yet found a truly fantastic idea. But when he takes his family fishing on Lake Michigan, his daughter Virena asks, Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a fish?--and Papa is off to his workshop. With a lot of persistence and a little bit of help, Papa--who is based on the real-life inventor Lodner Phillips--creates a submarine that can take his family for a trip to the bottom of Lake Michigan.