Marine Life Books

I bought this book as a gift for my 16yr old niece. The very next day, she told me how much she loved the book. She even cried reading it. I think it's nice to find reading materials that can move the minds and feelings of teenagers.

I skimmed through the book before I gave it to my granddaughter who just turned 13. I thought it had some well written stories that a teenager can relate to and a lot of food for thought. She was so happy to get it, since she had the one for pre-teens also and really liked it.

Once again, "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books has a hit. This is a wonderful gift for young teens with its easy read of short stories on pertinent topics and experiences teens face. Teens I have given it to as a gift have loved it and purchased the next in the teen series. Also a source of good talking points for those anxiety ridden moments or social issues teens face.

I am a teacher in two high schools and I like to read the stories of the book to my students from time to time to inspirate them and reinforce their teenage self esteem! I suggest it to all teacher to make the same with a nice calm background music.

I recomend that you read this book because its stories are touching, sad, heart warming, and pretty much every other emotion you can feel. You can learn a lot about different in life, and how people got through them. :p
zoe r.
lanier ms

A review from my teenage daughter:

"A Ring of Endless Light" is one of my favorite books!

I've read it five times since I first found it at the library last summer, and since then, I have also read "A Wrinkle in Time," "The Moon by Night,"and "An Acceptable Time".

What I really like about it is the characters. They are so interesting!

The movie, on the other hand, was nowhere near as good as the book. (Characters they left out: John, Leo, Grace, Binnie, Nancy Rodney, Jeb Nuttley, and probably somebody else, too...) And after I read the book, I was rather upset with the Disney Channel.

Although this is a wonderful novel, I would not recommend it to anyone under the age of thirteen because of some mature content.

Lastly, I want to include my frequent rant ( more of a whine, really) about that Zachary Gray person: I never understood why Ms. L'Engle kept putting him in her books. He never changes, and he's just as much of a jerk in "An Acceptable Time" as he was in this book. I don't know what Vicky sees in him. He kept saying that he "needed her" but she can't be his psychologist; Earth to Vicky, Earth to Vicky! Not a good reason to go out with him!

As always, Madeleine L'Engle delivers a stunning piece of fiction with `A Ring of Endless Light.' Although the main character, Vicky Austin, gives off a distinctive mary-sue air, the book (especially the guys!) are very enjoyable. Pieces of poetry found in this book are beautiful and elegant; they alone would be cause enough to read the book. `A Ring of Endless Light' also offers the reader an insight into the emotions and thoughts of a teenage girl in a fantastical setting. I would recommend this book for ages 13 and up. If you enjoyed this book, I would recommend Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume, Father Figure by Richard Peck and With You and Without You by Ann Martin as well as the rest of L'Engle's books.

Once again, Madeleine L'Engle has constructed a masterpiece. All her books are superb, but this one stands out to me as my absolute favorite. I understand its a Disney Channel movie now as well. I remember reading this book when I was about middle school aged and thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, I took notes. There are several wonderful quotes that are worth remembering, and I think by the end I was left with some 10 pages of notes. I was a bit of a nerd as a kid, I guess. Still have all the papers filed away somewhere. Also memorized one of the poems to recite in my english class in about 7th grade. Fantastic book. I need to read it again.

In Madeline L'Enlgle's A Ring of Endless Light, 15-year old Vicky goes out to visit her sick grandfather to spend some time with him. During her stay, an old family friend, Commander Rodney, dies because he was trying to save another person from dying. On top of this, three young men are trying to get her adornment. Leo, Commander Rodney' son, is the nervous and puppy like young man who needs Vicky's attention. Although he may be nice, Vicky just wants to be his friend. Adam, a young man working at the marine biology center, confuses Vicky because he likes her, but pushes her away at the same time. Zachary, the rich, young man Commander Rodney died saving, wants Vicky back and claims that he needs her. Even though she has to deal with her love life, she has to help her grandfather, and other family members. During this vacation, she learns a lot about herself, death, life, her friends and family.

I really liked this book because it is very insightful. It gives me a lot of insight about living life. I want to live my lifelike Vicky and think like her because she lives her life to her fullest poetical and is moral, unlike me. She put phrases and lessons to heart and has a way of putting things into the right words. I liked how the author also wrote about death because I know that everyone is confused about tins subject. Some people firmly believe in one thing while other people are confused and wobbling. I remember what the Madeline L'engle writes about death whenever I come across one because her words sooth and help the soul.

I dislike the fact that the characters are a bit to perfect. The Austins are a bit like robots. There is the housewife mom that loves her husband and doesn't seem to have any arguments are all with him. The father is a strong man that supports his whole family. The oldest brother, like his father, is strong and smart. The youngest sister is beautiful and smart. The youngest brother is cute and innocent. Although Vicky seems more human than her family, she is still robotic. She always tries her hardest and it seems that everyone is drawn to her. Everyone trusts her with his or her secrets and everyone in the story has a longing to be with her. She is the person that people always want to be.

My favorite part of the book is hard to decide, but I think that my favorite part is when Vicky goes and visits the dolphins. I think that this is really interesting because Vicky learns that she can communicate with dolphins. In the beginning, she is really scared, but then she realizes that there is nothing to be afraid of. Soon, she feels comfortable with Basil. She can play with the dolphin and communicate freely. Even though people can't communicate with dolphins, Vicky can because her mind is somewhat childish, open, and free. I think that this is my favorite part because Vicky's relationship with Basil is much like my relationship with my friends. When I first made my friends, we were scared and shy, but once we knew each other, we had a lot of fun. When I am with my friends, I become childish, open and free, just like Vicky.

I loved this book and I would recommend it to girls from the ages 10 and up. This was a good story to connect to your life or the lives of the people around you. The things that happen to Vicky in A Ring of Endless Light might happen or may have happened to the reader. Therefore the plot of the story is believable. I would like to read another story by this author because I loved how thorough she was when describing Vicky's thoughts and feelings. When she was explaining how Vicky was seeing only darkness after a friend died in her arms, she painted a very vivid picture in my head. I thought that a Ring of Endless Light was truly a great book.

Words really can't describe this book. It's just page after page of astonishing photos of creatures from the deep sea. All the photos are of the highest technical excellence, and the creatures displayed seem like they must be from another planet. The most exotic land animals you've ever seen come off as quite mundane in comparison to what you'll see in The Deep.

This beautifully designed book once again illustrates how boring the LAND creatures are. Aquatic life will forever remain a mystery. These pictures are absolutely stunning. The variety of these critters (most of them of unknown species) will baffle even the most imaginative brain. A great addition for book-lovers, photographers and anyone interested in exotic marine life.

Our world is an amazing place, and the word "amazing" is meant in its truest sense. What "The Deep" does is to show just how intricately and delicately interconnected this planet is while revealing a hitherto unknown ecosphere in our deep oceans. Events on or near the surface nearly always take precedence but here the deep sea is documented and photographed as never before.

There are some creatures so alien in appearance that it is hard to believe they exist on this Earth. Many have been photographed for the very first time, and not a few are still unclassified. There are sea spiders, Spanish Dancers, glass squids, all manner of fish and jellies and one "cute" thing called a Yeti crab. They thrive in near total darkness, sometimes thousands of meters below the ocean's surface. It is a whole different world down there, and it exists right here on Earth.

Of course any text involved will relate the environmental destruction that man is wreaking in the deep sea. The author does this without preaching. It is just fact, and she is simply covering a part of the world that gets no media coverage because it is largely unknown.

Claire Nouvian's "The Deep" is a visually fascinating coffee-table book. The sturdy binding and thick printing paper contain some truly awe-inspiring photographs of the earth's deep sea creatures. The photographs themselves are crystal clear and taken up close to capture as much detail as possible. "The Deep" is a great gift idea for nature-lovers, ocean-lovers and anyone interested in just how fascinating life on this planet--in all its forms--is.

Starting with the movie Titanic, there has been a growing interest in the ocean. This interest has been fed by the growing number of miniseries that have appeared on the Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, BBC, PBS and other news media. Some examples include James Cameron's Aliens of the Deep, the Blue Planet series, and Shark Week. Ths interest has also spilled over into the written media, with the latest fluorish being this book by French author Claire Nouvian. Packaged in the format of a coffee table book, it contains some of the most astounding photographs of wildlife I have ever seen.

The book is hefty, due to the large photo spreads, but is very readable, as I read it in 3 hours. The text flows quite well, and is interspersed with numerous photos and the occasional CG reproduction. Each section is short, and focuses on one tight subject; hence the book can be read in spurts of 10-15 minute intervals. The photographs are the principle selling point of this book. As it focuses on deep sea organisms, most of the creatures seen here will never be seen in Sea World or any other aquarium for that matter. The book is nice in that it provides pictures of over 100 different species of organisms, with a large and detailed caption for each figure.

The production quality of this book was among the best I have seen. The photography was amazing, but the most intriguing aspect of this book was "how were these photographs taken?" If you are interested in life in the abyss this is a book you must buy.

This is a must have book for the novice to choose which fish are right for your tank

this book i bought as my first aquaruim quide, it is amazing, i love this book, it has all what i need and more than 500 kinds of fish.
i have bought all my fish so far by researching thm in this book and it is working wonderfull. pictures are great quality and information are more than enough to know and keep the fish.
i absolutly recommend that you buy this book.

This book has been unbelievably helpful in helping me to decide which fish I should choose as I set up my first saltwater aquarium. The photographs are clear and bright, and there are many, many species represented here. The code makes it quick and easy to see if a certain fish is compatible with what I already have in my tank. Now, when I go to buy a fish, I keep this book in my car. I go into the shop to see what they have, and if there is something that catches my interest, I'll come back out to the car and look up the description before I make a purchase. This has saved me on a few occasions - not all of the sales people really know what they're talking about, but I have complete confidence in this book for giving me the unbiased facts. This really is a "must buy"!!

As someone looking to start a saltwater tank, I picked up this book to fully understand what species I want and SHOULD put in the tank I plan on setting up. This book is invaluable in pointing me to fish that will be the most appropriate for me, a new saltwater aquarist, to support. This book is a saltwater version of Tropical Freshwater Aquarium Fish from A to Z (Compass Guides), which like the Marine Fishes book, includes detailed information about minimum tank sizes, feeding guidance, and tips for captive care. A "suitability" color-code is also displayed for each species ranging from green (a hardy fish which is suitable for most hobbyists) to red (leave the fish in the reef).

If you're new to saltwater tanks like me, I recommend you also read Complete Encyclopedia of the Saltwater Aquarium and the Aquarium Corals : Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History to gain an understanding of what's required to set up and maintain a healthy saltwater environment. Slow and steady is the word. They've certainly helped me understand what it is I need to do and this Marine Fishes book is a handy take-along for visits to the local fish stores.

It's a very good and quick guide to acquarium reef fishes.
It gives the most important informations about species:their needs,suitability index ,captive care and reef aquarium compatibility.
It's a book that I really use a lot to ID the species!
A very good guide.I recomend it :)

I love this book and the accompaning CD. My grandsons who are now 13 had this book when they were infants, and were still singing the songs when they were 5. I gave it as a gift to my God Daughter, and this one was a gift for my first Great Grandson. Raffi writes stories and songs that children should grow up with. I am positive I will give this book and CD again.

This book is great even if you don't know the music. My little guy 'reads' along while listening to the Raffi CD, but you don't need the CD to enjoy the book. The pictures are terrific for the child and adult. My son insists on reading this every night at bedtime, and that's okay with me!

My sister is a principal and highly recommeded this book for my grandchildren. THey love to read and sing so what better gift than to have it all wrapped into one.

Baby Beluga is a fantastic book for the class I work in. The three and four year old special ed students LOVE this book along with Raffi's music being played. I strongly recommend it for any child. I'm purchasing the book and the CD for my nephews who do not have any disabilities because I know they'll love it too.

My daughter is crazy about this book, and she has been since she was about 8 months old. I think the fact that you can't help but sing the story when you read it makes it much more interesting. I've never actually heard the whole song before, so I can only guess if I'm singing it correctly. She loves it though. As always, the cardboard pages make for a very durable baby book.

This colorful guide book to the reef fish of Florida, the Bahamas, and the Carribean is an excellent reference. Fish are shown in beautiful color pictures with information on size, shape, where to find them,and how they are likely to react to divers.
All the usuals are of coures here but so are many less commonly seen in guide books. Written information also includes descriptions of common variants.
An all around excellent book for the semiserious to serious snorkeler or diver who enjoys identifing what they see.

As book reader and Diver, I just love this book, It gives me all the pictures and characteristics for an accurate evaluation of the creatures I found under water. Great pictures, and outstanding charcterization of fishes.

At one time I was the head of a volunteer organization in WPB, Florida that assisted Palm Beach County with their artifical reef program. Part of the qualification was to get training in a variety of related subjects (like fish identification) sponsored by the Florida Oceanographic Society. This book served as our fish identification "bible." I no longer live in FL, but when I go diving in the Caribbean I stil take this book with me. If you need to (or just want to) know the fish of the Caribbean, buy this book.

This is a fabulous resource, and I wish we had bought it before to take with us on our trip to BVI

This is a reef fish identification book. This sounds obvious, but that really is the focus here. It's not a book to teach you about fish behavior, biogeography, community ecology, or population trends. Author, diver, captain, photographer, and attorney (!) Paul Humann took most of the 670 photographs in this book, a real accomplishment for any diver, since the result of a blurred or indistinct photograph of a fish is to... go get another.

The organization of this ID book is by fish shape. He's got 12 "identification groups":

- disks and ovals (colorful)
- silvery
- sloping head and tapered body
- small ovals
- heavy body and large lips
- swim with pectoral fins, and with obvious scales
- reddish and big eyes
- small, elongated bottom-dwellers
- old-shaped bottom dwellers
- odd-shaped swimmers
- eels
- sharks and rays

Any fish watcher would see the "logic" of this organization, although it could make some ichthyologists squirm with these sets of artificial groupings.

The book is spiral-bound so that the pages, when opened, stay open. And the clay content in the paper makes it more resistant to water dripping from your wetsuit or your hair. Just make sure you wipe it off, pronto.

Now the photos... They are very high quality, and Humann is to be commended for taking, or selecting from other photographers, pictures that really pull out the details of the various fish . For example, the Sergeant Major has the delicate yellow along the base of its dorsal fin, and those frogfish must be viewed in both a camouflaged condition and in a setting where they are contrasted with the background.

Any amateur photographer will soon discover the difficulty in getting a full, close-up and lateral view of a fish. They tend to swim away from you as you get close, giving you a great view of the tail sweeping away. These photos are the result of a truly amazing amount of patience.

In an appendix, he throws in some sea turtles and dolphins or good measure, as well as a checklist for keeping track of the reader's sightings.

My ocean diving has all been in the Pacific, and it was interesting seeing species related to my own "friends." If I get the opportunity to dive in Florida, the Caribbean, or the Bahamas, this will be the book I throw in my dive bag... in a zip-lock bag, of course.

I'm an avid pop up collector (or my little boy is, but I get as excited as he does when we get another one) and this is as wonderful as the other Sabuda books. It's holding up well even though I have to pretend to attack my son whenever we get to the huge set of shark jaws; these books are not as fragile as you'd think.

My sons got this book along with The Jungle Book for Christmas. These books are works of art. They combine amazing pop-up art with a good story. My kids love these books. I plan to give away copies of Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart's work to other folks in the future. Makes really memorable gifts.

"You will love this pop up book,especially if your interested in sea monsters or megaladons sharks or dinosaurs.I will get megabeasts and dinosaurs pop up book too. I collect megaladon teeth too.The biggest one I have is a replica of a 10 1/2 inch megaladon tooth I bought on ebay.I bought some real teeth too that are over 5 inches and are 200-300 and up.Some teeth are over $20,000 the 10 1/2 inch one probably is really expensive even with it chipped off and 7 inches is what the average biggest complete teeth found is"and they are in the 20,000s".

My 6 yr old son received this as a Christmas gift. We all fell in love with it - even my 2 yr old! Being an Encyclopedia it is filled with information and the pop out pictures are fantastic, plus they grab the children's interest easily. I was amazed at the detail and quality of the pop outs. There are tiny books within the pages that also have tiny detailed pop outs. These books are going to be kept for a long time!

Absolutely gorgeous and intriguing pop-ups. Good information about the sharks and sea monsters. I love all things by Robert Sabuda. Good for kids 4 and older.

Carl is a wonderful writer and brilliant scientist, this book covers a wide range of issues while keeping it lively and hopeful.

I bought this book for my daughter who will go to graduate school to study marine science next year. I have not read the book but based on other reviews I think this must be an excellent book especially my daughter is very much concerned about preserving nature. Anyway, I was a litle bit disappointed when I received the book. I ordered soft copy and the print was so small that I don't know whether it will turn off my daughter's interest since she is very nearshighted. I don't mind if the book is thicker or bigger.

Part exploration, part eloquent plea for action, this is the report of a scientist's journey toward understanding the plight of our seas. Safina travelled with tuna fishermen and coral research teams, salmon boats and conservationists fighting for the Columbia Gorge. Their stories are here, in their words, set against a backdrop painted by a Yale professor with the soul of a poet. The litany is one of collapsing fisheries and dying reefs, huge nets that are scraping the sea floor into a featureless, lifeless plain, unbridled greed, and people whose heritage as sailors and fishermen is disappearing in a generation. Here also is the graceful breach of a humpback whale, the slow lazy lolling of an ocean sunfish, and the bullet quick movement of bluefin tuna under Atlantic sunrises and Pacific sunsets. An altogether beautiful book about the slow death of the sea. Safina believes we can protect the bounty and diversity he so eloquently describes. The question he poses is, "Will we choose to?" and suggests that one way to help answer that is to ask another. "What if we don't?"

This is one of the most beautiful, powerful books I have ever read. Safina's journey encompasses the entire world and all points of view. His words have inspired me to pursue my dreams and opened up new worlds of knowledge. Now, every time I hear of politicians doing something stupid to the oceans or rivers, I just shake my head and say "'Song' should be required reading for them before they can draft a piece of legislation dealing with the oceans."

I'm only about halfway through this book, but it's so moving that I decided I needed to rave now. Carl Safina uses an amazing grasp of language to paint mental pictures of what he writes about. I work in the scientific community and have spent a lot of time on that water, and his writings are not only objective and scientifically sound, he constructs them in such a way that they are beautiful. You will have a thirst for each topic and region of which he writes. I borrowed this book from the library and had vowed to buy it before I'd finished the first chapter. It has only improved as I've proceeded.

This book is a great visual and tactile stimulation toy for babies 6 months and older. Excellent value for the product.

I got this book for my daughter when she was 4 months and she loved it. It's bright and colorful, has catchy rhymes and different textures, things for a baby to chew on. Her favorite was the oyster. I also got Fuzzy Bee for her later but I felt this book is the best of the series.

This book is so cute. It has different textures on each page and my 7 month old loves to eat it. We got it as a gift, and now I send it as a gift.

The only issue with this is that it really smells like chemicals even after a good airing. Since the first thing that my son did was try to put it in his mouth, I washed the book. It's still usable, but it no longer lies flat and it looks a little messed up. But I'm glad I washed it because it's in his mouth constantly.

This is the best of this series of cloth books. I returned both Fuzzy Bee and Fluffy Chick because their rhymes and textures are far inferior to those of Squishy Turtle. My daughter loves this book, and she doesn't seem to tire of the fun and clever rhymes when I read it to her, nor the interesting textures of the sea life within its soft pages. If you only buy one of these cloth books, you definitely should get this one.

Beautiful pictures, we are actally going to use this book as our guest book at our wedding.

great gift for ocean lovers. amazing photography. an enjoyable book for those that love the water, but don't want to get wet.

David Doubilet's photographs are simply beautiful...this book really blew me away. I could literally stare at the images for hours as they are that captivating. It's almost as if you're diving with Mr. Doubilet and seeing these creatures up close. The way he uses two separate views (i.e. shooting the ray underwater while also shooting the sky above the water) is amazing. While exhibiting his photography prowess, Mr. Doubilet also shows the viewer the strong connection of all the earth's elements. He also seems to have a strong relationship with the ocean life- the stunning photo of the seal peeping over the bed of kelp truly captures the seal's beauty without compromising its playful nature.

This book is a treasure!

I couldn't imagine a more beautiful photography book! If you are fascinated with the underwater world, this is for you! The quality of the photographs are unmatched. Looking through the book is a magical experience.

Not only the pictures are artistically and beautifully photographed, but one cannot not wonder how Mr. Doubilet could be right there at the moment, with the right lights and the right angles to capture such incredible photos. If you appreciate nature's beauty and photography, this book is a must.