THEY SWIM THE SEAS

In a companion book to Ride the Wind (1997), Simon (see review, above) turns his attention to the migratory habits of marine plankton, plants, fish, and mammals. From alga called spirogyra, spread by moving currents, to the nesting patterns of sea turtles to the great gray whale’s legendary 4,000-mile trek from Baja to the Bering Sea, Simon astounds readers with the marvels of migration. The author poses questions to which the answers can’t be known, but curious readers may find themselves frustrated, wanting to know how scientists manage to study tuna traveling three times faster than the boat from which they’re observed. Lilting, liquid watercolors in all the gray-greens of the sea majestically portray barnacle-dappled whales, rushing salmon, or marching spiny lobster. A rougher fit with the picture-book format is the book’s continuous narrative, without organizational headings and with additional information about each migrator appearing in a five-page addendum titled, “More About Ocean Journeys.” Still, Simon and Warnick beautifully succeed in capturing the wonder of the migratory process. (Picture book. 7-10)