Thursday, August 2, 2012

Over in the Ocean: Books to enjoy

As I mentioned, we've been exploring the oceans for the past week or so, and of course, doing lots and lots of reading, especially about coral reefs.  It initially started with us reading "Night of the Moonjellies", but it branched out into a fortnight of ocean adventures!  Anyway, we're certainly spoilt for choice since there are so many children's books on the sea, but here are our favourites:

:: "Water Sings Blue", by Kate Coombs: Firstly, the illustrations are gorgeous...


And then there's the poetry.  Like for the octopus squirting ink:
"The famous author hesitates to pick his pen up....
He autographs the water with a single word - goodbye."


I love the curling and swirling language, and how we can use the book to explain and describe various aspects of the ocean further.

:: "A House for Hermit Crab", and "Mister Seahorse" by Eric Carle: Of course we couldn't miss out these two books, which help to introduce various creatures in the sea.


:: "Out of the Ocean", by Debra Frasier: 
"My mother says you can ask the ocean to bring you something. 
If you look, she says, you might find it."   


The author takes you for a walk down the beach, and chronicles her findings, from tangled ropes to shells.  Reading this book was like taking a nice slow walk down the beach!  (Another book to try would be Flotsam by David Wiesner.)

:: Sally and the Limpet, by Simon James:  A story about a girl who tries to pick up a limpet and gets it stuck to her finger.  I like the book's underlying message about respecting nature!


If you're looking for books that introduce the myriad of creatures in the ocean, you could try: 

:: "Tiddler", by Julia Donaldson: We could never resist stories by Julia Donaldson, and Junior J loved identifying all the marine creatures in the book when we read it previously in SG.  (We also liked "The Snail and the Whale" by the same author.)

:: "A Swim through the Sea", by Kristin Joy Pratt: This book introduces various marine creatures arranged according to the alphabet, and also includes some extra information on the featured organisms:


The illustrations are pretty amazing, considering they were done by a 17 year old, and Junior J had fun trying to spot Seamore the seahorse on every page.

And for simpler books for younger kids learning to count, try:

:: "Over in the Ocean: In a Coral Reef", by Marianne Berkes: Its a simple catchy book, but what makes this book amazing is that all the illustrations in the book were shaped entirely from polymer clay!


:: "Tip Tap went the Crab", by Tim Hopgood: Another simple counting book with lovely illustrations.


What are your favourite books about the ocean?  Do share!

7 comments:

  1. Thx for sharing! Gonna work on the ocean theme too!

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  2. wow! all the books u read seem like such quality books! i will surely refer back here when i do ocean theme. Thanks a lot! But hor, how did u decide on these books?

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  3. cool, i've written down the titles and authors so will check them out at the library. tks for sharing!

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  4. Simply Mommie & O Tulip Mama:
    No problem, do share if you find other great reads, and happy reading!

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  5. Mummyzhu: Over here we don't have access to English books in the library, so I've been relying on Amazon to get my books. Thankfully Amazon sells second-hand copies too...

    Anyway, I usually google for titles, or note recommended titles from home-learning sites. Then I go to Amazon and check the reviews, plus take a look at their preview pages, to see if the books are really that good or age-appropriate. However I must confess we've had our fair share of misses, like how we purchased "Commotion in the Ocean" , which wasn't all that great!

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  6. Our first Julia Donaldson book was 'sharing a shell' which is my all time favourite, and quite ocean related. :). Thanks for sharing sooooooo many books!

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  7. Lynklee: Oh, we've not read that, thanks for the recommendation! :) No worries, happy reading if you try any of the above!

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