An ocean full of books
Published 6:17 pm Monday, November 24, 2008
For many families, and children especially, summer is a time for flip flops and swimsuits, gallons of sunscreen, awkward armloads of plastic buckets and shovels, and sand between the toes. Summer is a time for the beach. The best way to experience something is, of course, to dive right in, but on the long drive home, when the beach towel beckons, or when sand and surf are finally exchanged for the easy chair and the reading lamp, a good book can help recall or extend one’s aquatic adventures. There are endless choices when it comes to books about the ocean for children. Here are a few to look out for.
I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry is one of my favorite picture books of the year thus far. On the first page of this hilarious story, we meet our unreliable narrator, a giant, googley eyed, bright blue squid who proceeds to prove (so he thinks) that he is indeed bigger than any other sea creature, including clams, turtles, and even sharks. Sherry’s simple, repetitive text conveys the squid’s sheer delight in his size. Yet even young readers know more than the squid does, and will enjoy the satisfaction that follows a successful prediction when an enormous whale swallows our smiling, unsuspecting friend. A four-page wordless sequence, showing a shocked, then thoughtful, squid, is the perfect pause for the punch line, which shows that nothing - not even being eaten alive - can burst this squid’s bubble.
Fran Hodgkins’ Between the Tides is a picture book full of different surprises. Hodgkins’ words adopt a tide-like rhythm as she shows how animals that live in the tidal zone survive, temporarily, without the protection of water and the oxygen it provides. Ideal for pre-literate “readers,” each spread begins with the same words; young children can read along as soon as they recognize the pattern. Hodgkins’ soothing, simple text is crawling with basic information, but it probably won’t meet the needs of the truly fact-hungry reader. Those seeking a more detailed account of life in the ocean should take a look at Sandra Markle’s Octopuses, in which she describes the many ways in which the Pacific octopus avoids predators. Markle’s stunning photographs support her text.
Underwater photography also plays an important role in David Wiesner’s Caldecott Award winning, wordless picture book Flotsam. What begins as a typical day at the beach becomes, for Wiesner’s protagonist, an opportunity to dip his toes in the magical possibilities of the deep blue sea. Wiesner seamlessly transitions from the realistic discovery of a mysterious camera to the fantastical contents of the film it bears, and then back in time through the many generations of children who, once upon a time, also discovered this camera. It is a book that makes you say, “Wow,” with nearly every turn of the page, for the precision of the illustrations, the cleverness of the story, and the way it leaves your imagination surging in its wake.
Middle-grade readers with a scientific interest in coastal detritus will find Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion a compelling read. A new addition to the “Scientists in the Field” series, this book introduces children to two Seattle locals, Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer and W. James Ingraham, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. When hundreds — then thousands — of Nike sneakers began appearing on Northwest beaches in 1990, these two men recognized an opportunity to study the connections between flotsam and jetsam and ocean currents. In an engaging text, detailed and clear, author Loree Griffin Burns leads readers step by step through the scientists’ methods for experimentation and data collection. The book is packed with photographs, tables and charts, giving readers a close-up view of the world of beachcombing, oceanography, and clean-up efforts. After reading this book, you will never look at a small scrap of plastic — much less a Nike sneaker — quite the same way.
Also for older readers is Karen Romano Young’s Across the Wide Ocean: The Why, How, and Where of Navigation for Humans and Animals at Sea. Young follows the journeys of a sea turtle, sailboat, right whale, submarine, shark, and container ship, covering every imaginable subject related to navigation, from homing instincts to echolocation, from compasses to migration patterns. So much information packed in to 80 pages risks overwhelming some readers, but the book is beautifully designed, replete with painted backdrops, photographs, drawings, charts, and maps. Facts are doled out in small doses, strategically scattered across a page amidst related images or organized in bullet points or sidebars to clarify or add to the central bits of prose. A small school of illustrated fish crack jokes in speech bubbles, also helping to lighten the load. Young carefully concedes that the ocean is so much bigger than what can fit in one book; a suggested reading list sends eager readers off on the next leg of their ocean voyage.
Galen Longstreth is an MFA student at Vermont College. She received a master’s in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from the University of Pennsylvania, where she taught kindergarten for five years. She is a 1994 graduate of Mercer Island High School. She can be reached at glongstr@gmail.com.
