The beautifully designed layout and succinct text combine with the backmatter to offer very accessible nonfiction reading...
The creators of the About Habitats series add another excellent edition filled with information about various seashore environments around the world.
Seventeen illustrations are each matched to a simple one-sentence statement that notes its characteristics and wildlife. From the shores of the Indian Ocean to the sand dunes of the Atlantic to the rocky beaches of the Pacific, a caption for each plate identifies the name of the ocean and the specific flora and fauna depicted in a realistic scenic watercolor painting. For example, in the picture of the “southern ocean seashore,” large rock formations stand in line along the shoreline while sea gulls wheel in a pale blue sky above the greenish sea. The author also uses this initial painting to introduce the book’s overall concept. “Seashores are the places where land and oceans meet.” The backmatter allows for a more detailed description of each in a one-paragraph explanation next to a thumbnail duplicate of the specific painting. These brief yet informative amplifications address how wildlife and plant life have adapted to each habitat’s conditions.
The beautifully designed layout and succinct text combine with the backmatter to offer very accessible nonfiction reading for the very young as well as early grade students. (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-56145-968-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
An attractive addition to settings where Wolf Island (2017) and A Bear’s Life (2017) have been popular.
Seals and sea lions shelter in a protected area of the Great Bear Sea, safe from stormy weather and prowling orcas.
McAllister, a photographer with more than 20 years of experience in the temperate rainforest along Canada’s Pacific coast, again teams up with Canadian journalist Read. This third in their series for younger readers uses McAllister’s photographs to illustrate a slim storyline about seals, sea lions, and other creatures who take cover from a storm in rocky areas larger animals can’t penetrate. Striking images, both above and under the water, show wide-eyed seals and the larger sea lions (but not the sea otters also mentioned). Later, when the storm is over, a group of orcas appears, circling around the entrance. In the clear, sunlit water, they can see the smaller mammals, but they can’t reach them. Kelp and other underwater vegetation provide a leafy backdrop to the scene. After the orcas move on, a final spread looks up at a group of seals on a barnacle-covered rock, once again comfortable in their world. Able readers who want to know more about this underwater world will enjoy The Great Bear Sea (2013), by the same team.
An attractive addition to settings where Wolf Island (2017) and A Bear’s Life (2017) have been popular. (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1267-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
A winning heads up for younger readers just becoming aware of the wider natural world.
An appeal to share concern for 12 familiar but threatened, endangered, or critically endangered animal species.
The subjects of Marino’s intimate, close-up portraits—fairly naturalistically rendered, though most are also smiling, glancing up at viewers through human eyes, and posed at rest with a cute youngling on lap or flank—steal the show. Still, Clinton’s accompanying tally of facts about each one’s habitat and daily routines, to which the title serves as an ongoing refrain, adds refreshingly unsentimental notes: “A single giraffe kick can kill a lion!”; “[S]hivers of whale sharks can sense a drop of blood if it’s in the water nearby, though they eat mainly plankton.” Along with tucking in collective nouns for each animal (some not likely to be found in major, or any, dictionaries: an “embarrassment” of giant pandas?), the author systematically cites geographical range, endangered status, and assumed reasons for that status, such as pollution, poaching, or environmental change. She also explains the specific meaning of “endangered” and some of its causes before closing with a set of doable activities (all uncontroversial aside from the suggestion to support and visit zoos) and a list of international animal days to celebrate.
A winning heads up for younger readers just becoming aware of the wider natural world. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-51432-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
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