Ocean Babies - 9780792266693

"Big as a bus and smaller than seeds, billions of babies are born the ocean...." This opening line and later refrain entices readers into a magical, real-life world. Through lyrical, read aloud text and light-hearted and beautiful illustration, Ocean Babies presents the animal babies of the ocean. The giant blue whale contrasts with tiny coral polyps, sea horses pop from their fathers' pouches, and bat rays spread wing fins to fly through the ocean for the first time. Did you know that sea otter pups are helpless at birth and need to learn to swim from their parents? Did you know that orca babies look exactly like their parents, while baby emperor angelfish change colors completely in adulthood? Children see an array of charmingly illustrated ocean babies with their parents and also get a gentle introduction to animal life strategies and patterns, such as migration and predation. Fascinating back matter notes on the art and text add another layer of information to the lilting main text with details on habitat, behavior, and animal strategies and life cycles. Readers who go beyond the beautiful read aloud lines will come away with an added wealth of information on ocean dwellers, from red crabs to walruses, from seals to tunicates. A strong text with a serious scientific underpinning is coupled with beautiful, carefully vetted, yet engagingly whimsical illustration, making Ocean Babies an educational and very lovely young picture book with a winning combination of popular topics: the ocean and animal babies.