Bad Mouthing: Moray Eel--Dangerous Teeth by Meish Goldish

All morays, whether large or small, have extremely dangerous teeth in their mouths. Most kinds have a few rows of curved teeth with tips that are as sharp as needles. The fish's throat, however, is as deadly as its mouth.

Scientists made this discovery recently, in 2007. At the University of California, researcher Rita Mehta filmed a moray eating, using high-speed video. When she played it back in slow motion, she saw something come up quickly from the fish's throat. It was a second set of jaws with sharp teeth.

Among the most popular exhibits in aquariums across the country are the fascinating giant moray eels--long, sinuous, bright-colored, popping violently from crannies with open mouths, filled with needle-like teeth. Meish Goldish's just published Moray Eel: Dangerous Teeth (Afraid of the Water), (Bearport, 2010) provides a close-up look at this amazing predator, found in shallow temperate and tropical waters around the world.

Goldish begins with a couple of pages warning of the danger morays can offer to swimmers, leading off with a case of personal attack on a young diver. Although he points out that morays are shy and rarely attack humans unless threatened, the photograph of a moray bite will remind ocean goers to keep their hands away from possible moray lairs!

The author goes on to describe the feeding habits, habitat, and life cycle of these intriguing animals. Text boxes on each page, full- and double-page spreads feature large color stills of assorted types of morays, maps, and scientific terms in boldface facilitate research and learning, and a final section, "In Case of a Bite," offers information on first aid. The text is backed up with a brief appendix, including "Other Things That Bite" (piranhas and barracudas), a glossary of terms used in the text, references and further reading, and a short index.

There is a lot of intriguing information for elementary and middle readers packed into this 24-page text, made so accessible that youngsters will devour this one like popcorn. Other titles in the Afraid of the Water series include the eye-grabbing Shark: The Shredder (Afraid of the Water).

Fun on the Web: An Australian Outback Food Chain: A Who-Eats-What Adventure by Rebecca and Donald Wojahn

Your small plane flies over the Outback just as morning breaks. Out the window, you see huge expanses of red earth. Nothing else as far as you can see. The Outback is the inner region of the country of Australia. It is one of the flattest and driest places on Earth.

Such a desolate view sounds as devoid of all life as a Marscape. But this barren landscape is home to a fascinating web of rare and exotic animals with their own closely interconnected society, each relying on the others for their very life.

Dying of thirst in a place where good rains may be years apart? There's the water-holding frog which can form a cocoon-like covering of new skin, burrow underground, and wait--for years if need be--for the next rain. Find one and you've found a quick quencher. Or if you are a predator with opposable thumbs and a tool-making brain (that would be us,) you can tap a baobab's thick trunk and have a life-saving draft.

If digging out a cocooned frog or drilling through steel-like bark is not your thing, perhaps your body can learn to recycle your own water supply, like the spectacled hare-wallaby, who can recycle the moisture from his own cooling panting back to his stomach and who is also blessed with the natural world's most efficient kidneys.

Australia is famous for its animal oddities--egg-laying mammals like the echidna, the fearsome saltwater crocodile, and the eucalyptus-loving koala, and Rebecca and Donald Wojahn's An Australian Outback Food Chain: A Who-Eats-What Adventure (Follow That Food Chain) (Lerner, 2009) is filled with lavish color photographs of these various Outback animals in action in their challenging environment, each intriguing entry providing more than enough fascinating facts for those elementary research reports or for an awesome animal adventure between the book's covers.

But there is an interactive feature which will further attract reluctant reader-scholars. Subtitled A Who-Eats-What Adventure, the book invites kids to select one of four tertiary consumers--a dingo, saltwater croc, wedge-tailed eagle, or Gould's monitor--in the familiar choose-your-own ending format, and track this predator's food chain through secondary consumers and primary consumers to the producers and decomposers who make its daily diet available. In another link to the interactive video game model, some choices lead to a DEAD END when the dietary endeavor ends in a gravely endangered or extinct Outback resident, (a gustatory GAME OVER, so to speak).

The book's design makes its generous information easily accessible with flow charts, diagrams, and informational text boxes placed throughout the text and with boldface type for animal names and scientific terms introduced in the text and repeated in the glossary. Other items in the backmatter include "Further Reading and Websites," "Selected Bibliography," and an index.

In addition to such stalwarts of ecology studies such as A Desert Food Chain: A Who-Eats-What Adventure in North America (Follow That Food Chain), the excellent Follow that Food Chain series includes such exotic ecologies as A Galapagos Island Food Chain: A Who-Eats-What Adventure (Follow That Food Chain) and A Mangrove Forest Food Chain: A Who-Eats-What Adventure in Asia (Follow That Food Chain).

Rock Stars: Crystals and Gemstones by Chris and Helen Pellant

Kids are born rockhounds, but adult field guides can be a bit off-putting for the novice collector. Chris Pellant's Crystals and Gemstones (Rock Stars) (Gareth Stevens, 2009), part of this notable nonfiction publisher's Rock Stars series packs plenty of basic information into its 24 colorful, photo-filled pages. Author Pellant provides all the basics--facts about the big three, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks, the mechanics of crystal formation, and the usefulness of crystals in daily life--from the diamonds in the British crown or in surgical blades to the crystals which compose our own bones.

Color photographs display the range of colors, forms and sizes which crystals and their refined relatives gemstones can take, and an intriguing graphic shows the range of hardness for crystals, from the durable diamond to the softness of talc, with practical advice on testing with fingernails (2 1/2 on the scale) to steel nails (5 1/2 on the scale). Organic gemstones (amber, coral, pearl) are also described with explanations of how they are formed and used.

A section titled "Crystal Collector" offers photos and descriptions of common collectible stones from augite to tourmaline, aquamarine to zircon. Directions for field collecting, storage, and display are clear and easy to read, and a glossary and index back up the textual information.

To spark interest, the author scatters star-shaped text boxes (IT'S A FACT!) with kid-catching tidbits of information to spark further investigation. One page features a display of popular birthstone gems, while another (RECORD BREAKERS) shows the biggest crystals (36 feet) and the oldest cut diamond (the 5000-year-old Koh-i-Noor), among others. Another engaging browsing page (DID YOU KNOW?) offers more fascinating facts (the Statue of Liberty looks green because of the atamite crystals caused by reaction with oxygen on the copper surface).

Good nonfiction books can expand on classroom knowledge or inspire a lifetime avocation among young readers. Crystals and Gemstones (Rock Stars) is a new entry on this popular subject which definitely makes the grade. See also Fossils (Rock Stars), another title in this solid series.

Mr. Mom: Looking for Miza by Juliana and Isabella Hatkoff and Paula Kihumbe.

Craig, Juliana, and Isabella Hatkoff, authors of the best-selling Owen & Mzee books, which told the moving story of a hippo and giant tortoise who have an unlikely friendship, have turned their attention to the mountain gorillas of the Congo's Virunga National Park in their new book Looking For Miza.

The authors tell the story of a two-year-old infant female gorilla named Miza. Still too young to be weaned, Miza's mother takes her away from the troop to forage and fails to return in the evening. Led by Miza's father, the silverback Kabirizi, the members of the band search for the missing two. The forest rangers assigned to protect this group of endangered gorillas search the dense forest as well, but it is finally her father Kabirizi who finds and brings the young one back to the troop. At first Miza seems traumatized by the apparent loss of her mother in some unfortunate event, but with time and care from her older sister Tumaini and the others, she soon recovers her appetite and spirits.

Illustrated with beautiful, evocative photographs by Peter Greste, this story of life among one of earth's most threatened species will appeal to young readers, not only for the poignant account of a lost baby gorilla, but also for its wealth of information about the environment and family behavior of these great apes. The depiction of the powerful silverback as a caring father figure is a valuable corrective to the view of the male gorilla as "King Kong."

For my posts on the Hatkoffs' earlier books, Owen & Mzee The Language of Friendship and the more recent How One Little Polar Bear Captivated The World (Knut), see my reviews here and here.