See the Wet Set! Alphaprints: Sea Life by Jo Ryan, et al

Alphaprints goes down deep to see who's in the sea!

GREAT WHITE SHARK IS GREATLY FEARED.

HAMMERHEAD SHARK LOOKS VERY WEIRD!

Bud somehow, when Priddy Books does the great white shark's face in blue fingerprint style, he doesn't look so scary. And in this wet-set entry in the Alphaprints series, young readers get to meet some familiar denizens of the deep--the clown fish (a la Nemo)--the dolphin, and crab, and some more unusual ones--the narwal, squid, and moray eel. Also found inside are octopuses, sea lions, lobsters, starfish and stingrays.

All twenty ocean animals are standouts set against bright white board book pages in cheery and reasonably realistic images that will introduce preschoolers to these more well-known forms of sea animals common to aquariums--a good preparation for a summer visit--in Roger Priddy's Alphaprints Sea Life (St. Martin's Press/Priddy Books, 2018), created by Jo Ryan, Ella Boultwood, Penny Worms, and Amy Oliver. With rhyme and rhythm and touchy-feely textures, this sturdy little board book is a treat for visual and tactile experience.

A Day at the Beach: Wave by Susie Lee

The essence of what a picture book should be--Suzy Lee's brilliant, beautiful Wave, a story without words which speaks volumes, recreates the joy of a first encounter with the ocean's waves.

Executed in simple, almost primitive, charcoal pencil lines in dusky gray and black against a bright white background, the pages are lit up with the brilliant but soft blue of the ocean, its motion rendered evocatively with simple variations of color and swirls of foam. Into this scene comes a small girl, sturdy legs and windblown hair rendered in a few deft lines, watched over benevolently by her mother from the shade of her umbrella and by a line of five seagulls facing windward.

Approaching the edge, the girl retreats hastily from the first breaking wave, but she and the gulls quickly regroup as she ventures into the wet sand and puts a tentative toe into the wavelet as it rolls backward. Reassured, she splashes and twirls in the shallows.

But suddenly a giant wave begins to roll in. Temporarily frozen in the face of the curling, looming wave, girl and birds turn and flee up the shore's slope. At what she thinks a safe distance, the girl turns and saucily sticks out her tongue at the rogue wave. "You can't get me," she seems to be saying.

Then the wave breaks all over her, in a mass of roiling, splashing, swirling blue water, and just as hastily recoils, leaving the girl drenched and sitting, bottom sinking into the soft, wet sand, with her hair dripping and her legs stretched out before her.

But all round she sees what the wave has left for her--dozens of shells and even a living starfish--and she soon is gathering the bounty and calling to her mom to see what the sea has brought her. As her mother, umbrella folded and beachbag packed, comes down to the marge to gather her daughter and her treasures, the girl returns the starfish to the shallows, and then, turning to wave goodbye to the ocean and soaring gulls, heads home, salty, sandy, and happy.

It's everything a first day at the beach should be. Wave, is a little gem of a book which will appeal to all ages for its spare, sheer beauty and its wordless portrayal of childhood joy.

Creatures from Inner Space: The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss by Claire Nouvain

For an eye-goggling, mind-boggling look at some of the amazingly grotesque and exquisitely beautiful creatures of the ocean depths, take a look at Claire Nouvain's recently published The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss.

In what Andrew Robinson of Literary Review has called "a modern classic of natural history," Nouvain has utilized the advances in recent deep-water exploration technology to assemble a large-format book which glows with over 200 color photographs of little-known (and some yet unnamed) creatures of the deepest regions of the world's oceans. In their dazzling colors, morphologies not even imagined in Star Wars, and variety of adaptations to the biological imperatives of nutrition and reproduction, Just to look upon these animals expands our concept of life.

Reviewer Eric Ormsby describes these incredible photos as "like a series of underwater mug shots crafted by Faberge'." Along with eight photos of creatures who have no name, there are shots of giant squids the size of a barge, giant vent worms, dumbo and glass octopi, frilled sharks, furry lobsters, naked sea butterflies, and pigbutt worms. The prints of bioluminescent and and transparent animals are spellbinding. There are also sections on the little-known life which exists around deep sea hydrothermal and methane vents. Six-year-olds will be drawn to the photos of creatures more bizarre than any Pokemon creation, and older readers can skim the captions or go as far as their interests may take them into this volume.

The Deep has not been received just as a compendium of "ohmygosh" photos, however. Reviewers have applauded Nouvain's extensive informative text and captions and her generous utilization of fifteen eminent scientists who wrote evocative essays explaining life in the ocean abyss. Says Jon Copley of New Scientist, "Words and images combine to convey what we know and how much we don't know about life in our planet's largest habitat." And regarding that exploration of our "inner space," Robert Ballard says, "We must remember that a great deal of unfinished business remains here on earth."

And, judging from what this book reveals, what an exciting, inviting business it will be!