School Library Journal Review

Gr 4-6-Coral Reef is the most focused of these three titles, especially in its discussion of the corals themselves, including their life cycles and sexual and asexual reproduction, and current concerns about reef damage caused by pollution, global warming (never defined), and drastic fishing techniques. Predators presents snippets about a broad panoply of marine hunters and grazers, while Survival offers a pastiche of defense mechanisms, schooling behavior, and camouflage. However, several creatures named in the texts never appear in the index, and for some that do appear, readers are merely directed to a photo. Parrotfish are presented as coral-reef grazers in one title, but are not included in a paragraph on grazers in another. Words in bold are defined in the glossaries (where definitions may vary from title to title). All contain an eye-pleasing plethora of brightly colored photos of corals, fish, sea stars, and other inhabitants of the reef and the open ocean. If you already own such titles as Dorothy Hinshaw Patent's well-written Colorful Captivating Coral Reefs (Walker, 2003) or Salvatore Tocci's more demanding but informative Coral Reefs: Life Below the Sea (Watts, 2004) and/or Mary M. Cerullo's nifty Coral Reef: A City That Never Sleeps (Dutton, 1996), you may not need these.-Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.