From School Library Journal
Grade 2-5-These series entries are poorly written, illustrated, and organized. The first book covers only whales with little mention of other marine mammals. Sentences are choppy, drawings are dull and lacking in detail, and the few full-color photographs are small and uninteresting. In discussing types of whales, ancient species are illustrated while current species are described in the text. Whale teeth are mentioned in two different places, while many basic facts are neglected. There is no information explaining why whales are mammals, whale birth, whaling, habitat concerns, etc. The second book uses a confusing drawing of the world's oceans to illustrate currents. A number of the spreads seem to be laid out backward with drawings, captions, and fact boxes on the left page and the heading and text on the right page, confusing readers into thinking they are still reading about the previous topic. Several spreads cover ancient monsters and shipwrecks, leaving little room in this brief book for coverage of ocean life. Drawings of plants and animals have so little detail that children wouldn't recognize them if they saw them in the wild. One spread on dangers warns: "People are often stabbed, stung, and bitten, sometimes with fatal results." There is no information about how to enjoy the ocean while remaining safe. Neither book has a bibliography or Web sites, and the glossaries are woefully brief. Brenda Z. Guiberson's Ocean Life (Scholastic, 2002) covers both topics better; buy two copies of that book and skip these two.
Susan Oliver, Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library System, FL Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Library Binding
edition.
