Across the Big Blue Sea: An Ocean Wildlife Book

From the shallows of a California beach, a boy launches his toy boat on a 25,000-mile adventure in this competent introduction to sea life. Propelled by wind and ocean currents, the little red craft drifts across the Pacific Ocean, past an Australian coral reef, among Antarctic ice floes (though the text does not identify the South Pole by name), then up the Atlantic through the Sargasso Sea, eventually to land in the hands of another boy on Great Britain's coast. Wood (Animal Hullabaloo) presents the varied double-spread sea environments with pleasing contrast: from the light-bathed coral reef with its colorful butterfly, lion and clownfish to the murky depths of the Atlantic where gulper eel skulk. Shore birds and seabirds, fish and mammals, reptiles and sea flora are all represented here with minimal narrative and clear labels. Meanwhile, the dwarfed toy boat bobs through all these teeming waters. With the likes of macaroni penguins, sea cucumbers and anchovies, this smorgasbord serves as an attractive appetizer for the youngest marine biologists. Ages 3-8. (Apr.)