The Mellops Go Diving for Treasure
Note: This is a Learn From the Greats post which means it includes story spoilers to provide the proper context for the study. Proceed at your own risk.
The Mellops Go Diving for Treasure was part of a picture book pentology written and illustrated by Tomi Ungerer and published in 1957. It’s about a dad who finds directions to buried treasure from an ancestor’s letter in his attic and invites his sons on a deep sea diving adventure. Along the way, they encounter a merpig, a dangerous music-loving octopus, and a storm that ruins their ship. With only a little oxygen left, they barely escape, find the treasure, and make their way home. After taxes take the majority of their new riches (ha!), they decide the greatest treasure was the adventure they had along the way.
Let’s see what gems we discover as we dive into this book!
Ungerer is an absolute master of space. He often uses negative space to build the setting for his characters while also leaving room for readers to breathe and imagine. The placement of the objects make the scene feel bigger—like it existed before the story started—without overwhelming the page and text. Like how the light fixture spills out of the composition which makes it feel like it actually dangles on the ceiling. Suddenly the world exists, and we believe it.
The text creates a sense of mystery, and the illustration invites us to turn the page. As we watch Mr. Mellop read, we want to know what’s in the letter. A list of objects offers a hint that these things are tied to the past before we turn the page to see…
…Mr. Mellop’s ancestor from 1764, Le Capitaine Gideon Simon Mellop! The details on his outfit are perfect. Why are those feathers so satisfying to look at? And would they feel quite so alive without the whimsical dots behind them? I don’t think so! When another illustrator might have said “my drawing of these curly feathers is good enough,” Ungerer adds movement to them with a few dots. Again, just a small detail makes the drawing feel alive.
Through the letter to his wife, we learn that Captain Gideon and his men sunk a pirate ship at a precise location where the water is conveniently not very deep. The letter is essentially a “nudge, nudge, cough, cough.” Sometimes moments like these feel contrived in a bad way, but Ungerer leans into the joke. It’s supposed to feel absurdly convenient, and Ungerer let’s us know that he knows which makes this work when it otherwise might feel forced.
This composition is beautifully crafted to guide our eyes across the page in an upside down v-shape. Notice how Ungerer adds a wall to create a sense of place, but leaves the background open to make the characters easy to read. The family, with their incredible outfits and pet dog, are the focal point. (I find a pig family having a pet dog hilarious.)
Again, the details are what makes these drawings feels so alive. Ferdinand with the straw in his mouth (which you’ll see later on as well). The incredible patterned shirt. The suspender pants without a shirt. But, in my opinion, the most important detail is the smoke coming out of the ship. To me, the way Ungerer drew that makes me believe the ship is actually moving.
Ungerer also includes lively details in his text and organizes them in a way that is fun to read aloud. It’s satisfying to say “Pigport" or “an old side-wheel steamer for rent.” He adds stakes with the detail that their mother is anxious about this adventure.
The text and art are placed in a way to guide your eyes across the page in a zig zag. But this moment is meant to be enjoyed, not zoomed through like an action sequence, so Ungerer breaks up the zig zag with some moments where the characters are looking right at the reader (“look at me tying knots!”), encouraging us to pause. We especially linger on Mr. Mellop who has the greatest contrast and, when we are about to move on, the eyes of the dog guide us right back to him. We are meant to sit inside the satisfaction of this moment as it is important for the ending to land.
In the next spread, the characters’ expressions as they look at the reader feel different. A little nervous. Except Mr. Mellop. It would be tempting to make all their adorable suits the same, but Ungerer doesn’t pass up an opportunity to show each character’s personality with the details on their oxygen tanks.
Ungerer made this spread feel both spacious and contained. The use of negative space as the water is just too good with those two floating fish and the curls of the seaweed; the tiny lines of bubbles really sell it. And I love that he gives the dog a moment of adventure too with the first seahorse encounter.
In the text, he ups the stakes again by having them “go in a different direction” to look for the ship before meeting in an hour. Thus far in the story, Ungerer has really emphasized their togetherness (together they decided to do this adventure and together they worked on the ship); this contrasted with them going alone makes us feel the stakes more.
I crack up every time I see the octopus on this page. The drawing alone would be funny, but next to the tranquil magical merpig moment, it makes it even funnier. This guy loves music? Really?
Turn the page…
Oh, a true music enthusiast indeed.
Then we have another fun text to read aloud, “In a crumbled cabin among rusted cannons they found a chest and carried it away.” (By the way, treasure chests seem to appear in quite a few of Ungerer books.) Visually we pause on the treasure chest with another pig look at the reader, then take in a few fun details like the dog finding a bone, the use of black shapes and lines to create a wrecked feel, and the ominous fish poking out of the window. I swear the fish and the crab already know what’s up. Or the crab is also a music enthusiast. Your call. Either way, the sentence, “But disaster was waiting for them” makes you want to turn the page.
Oh no, their ship was wrecked while they explored a shipwreck…the irony!
This is the first time that color has spilled across the gutter. Both white and green serve as the sea AND the sand in the same spread which, though expertly designed and readable, slightly messes with the eye, heightening the anxiety and stress of the moment. For the first time, Mr. Mellop looks distressed. (It’s funny to me that the lobsters and crabs look dramatic like they are also distressed, but the fish have dopey smiles on. Just doing their thing under the sea.)
But the most distressing thing is this line: “They had little oxygen left, and could not stay underwater much longer.” Talk about stakes! It’s life or death.
Now we see them working together under immense pressure. To me, all that pressure is captured by just the string Mr. Mellop is about to cut. The tilt of the raft. The knife. Ungerer could have chosen other moments to illustrate like the string after it is cut (which the text suggests), the raft floating up, the pigs struggling with the ascent. But he chose the perfect moment. And because we read the words “The ascent was rapid and brutal” before the illustration, we are even more nervous for the cut. This is a textbook example of why text placement matters so much!
They surface just before running out of oxygen (note the adorable pig butt peeking over the edge of the raft), but Ungerer does not go easy on them. When they finally opened the treasure chest (the whole reason they were in this mess in the first place), all they found were maps and a compass. Though they look disappointed, you can tell they aren’t hopeless because Ungerer chooses to draw Ferdinand and the dog facing out to sea, ready for the adventure to continue.
Though they have a hopeful x marks the spot moment, Ungerer expertly keeps the tension with Mr. Mellop’s words: “We’ll see, when and if we arrive there.” Dun dun dun!
And then follows it up with a line that carries on the tone of absurd convenience we’ve felt throughout the story: “And they arrived.”
Just in case you didn’t note the tonal shift, the smiley sun lets you know. (I’m super curious why he decided to anthropomorphize the sun here. Like could this indicate reality isn’t actually reality? I don’t know! Any theories?) Also I love how he mirrors the dog’s encounter with the seahorse with a butterfly in this spread.
Continuing the convenience joke, Ungerer adds an arrow pointing directly to the treasure on the skull and crossbones. Too good. And there’s another visual callback with the dog’s bone.
Everyone looks happy again (and Ferdinand seems to have really embraced the sailor’s lifestyle in a super chill “I was born for this” sort of way). Note the sun’s face behind the water.
This could have been a very worrisome situation, but the whole family is pretty chill. (Though I wonder why they didn’t think of their poor mother who must be worried sick!) We continue to get to know these characters as individuals with the flower making and tree climbing. Interestingly, this is the first time we can’t see Mr. Mellop. Does this maybe reflect the kids’ growing sense of independence sparked by this adventure?
As always, Ungerer picks the best moments to draw. The fire and fish feel so real and perfectly drawn. And as a reader, we are experiencing the first look of that steamship with Isidor.
I love comparing the previous spread with this one. The ship is a tiny guy far away and now it is in the same visual place but taking up the whole page. It gives the boat a sense of movement.
The design of the boat page feels so satisfying to me. The windows that draw our eye and the giant ladder that stops the eye on the Mellop family. But now Ungerer turns the tale of convenience on its head. It turns out after Mr. Mellop pays his taxes, “hardly anything was left of the great treasure.” Which feels especially funny because of all the build up — the extreme absurdity. Now we get extreme absurdity in the opposite comedic form of ridiculous inconvenience.
But as we’ve seen thus far, the Mellops know how to let things roll off their pig tails. We see Mrs. Mellop happy again with her family back home. In this story, she was a representative of comfort and normality—both leaving it behind and returning to it. I can’t help but wonder what adventures SHE was up to while everyone was away. I hope they were marvelous.
And we see the family conclude that the treasure was really the fun experiences which is lovely reflection of Ungerer’s priorities as a storyteller.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this story! Feel free to leave a comment below.