FISH FACES

Celebrating the enormous and colorful variety of ocean life, a marine biologist and underwater photographer groups his splendid color photos by characteristics he points out in a concise text with a verse-like cadence: ``Fish that glide on fins like wings...Spotted fish, dotted fish/Fish with lines and stripes and waves...Red eyes/Green eyes/Great big pretend eyes....'' With snapshot-sized insets superimposed on creatively varied vistas featuring additional specimens and the lush blue or green of the sea itself as an out-of-focus background, his compositions are as interesting for their design as for the fascinating comparisons they present. A final page identifies the specimens (a matching challenge, since the pages aren't numbered). Remarkably handsome. (Nonfiction/Picture book. 3-9)