Planet Ocean

January 1, 2021
Dive with Annie Crawley through three strikingly different undersea worlds to see how climate change endangers them all. "We all have a story to tell" photographer Crawley says. In her daily life, she teaches land-dwellers to dive in the ocean, encouraging them to appreciate it and to share its beauty--and its problems. Newman's words and Crawley's pictures do just that for young readers here, with a clear narrative that combines science, images, and the voices of young divers and Indigenous peoples to get across their point. "The ocean is us," says Crawley; helping the ocean helps us all. An introduction points out that maps emphasize landmasses, dividing and diminishing the ocean, which, in truth, covers 70% of the Earth. Chapter by chapter, the writer follows the dive instructor and her team visiting the Coral Triangle in southeast Asia, the Salish Sea in western North America, and the Arctic at "the top of the world." There are also intriguing photographs (alas, not all clearly captioned), maps and charts, and short essays introducing other photographers, activists, scientists, and even a composer, all of whom work to care for the ocean and to tell its story. QR codes lead to further illustrative videos on the publisher's website. The range of nationalities represented and the inclusion of a variety of Indigenous voices make a particularly compelling argument that ocean health is a whole world problem. The backmatter includes tips on visual storytelling and actions readers can take to help the oceans. Worth exploring in depth. (author and photographer's note, glossary, source notes, further resources) (Nonfiction. 10-14)

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March 1, 2021
Grades 5-8 The author of Plastic, Ahoy! (2014) and Sea Otter Heroes (2017), Newman again turns her attention to the ocean. Overruling the idea of the world's five oceans, she notes that since they are interconnected, there is only one ocean. And she asks, because the ratio of ocean to land on planet Earth is 70 to 30, shouldn't we be calling it "Planet Ocean?" The book follows Crawley, an underwater explorer and photographer, as a knowledgeable guide to three very different regions connected by ocean waters, the Coral Triangle north of Australia, the Salish Sea bordering Washington State and British Columbia, and the Arctic. Newman's text describes each place visited, while Crawley's many attractive photos introduce the people and animals affected by environmental changes there, such as acidification, pollution, melting ice, overfishing, and rising sea levels. For each region, illustrated features offer the viewpoints of individuals living there. Presenting a good deal of information within a well-organized framework, the book conveys a strong sense of urgency to clean the global ocean and restore the ecosystems it supports.

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