Page by page, MacDonald's bright, cut-paper, collage-style artwork transforms circles into eyes and triangles into scales until a familiar creature is revealed, with the aid of a large fold-out page, on the final spread. As readers turn the brightly colored, die cut pages, shapes on each page come together to reveal a creature from long ago. This new concept book from Caldecott Honor illustrator Suse MacDonald is sure to entertain children. SCIENCE & SCIENTISTS.Lots of sharp teeth.
This is one beautifully rendered package that can be used as the simplest of counting books, or as a math/science catalyst for children to research and draw new animals by the numbers. On the endpapers is a map of the world with each of the creatures drawn in its ocean or on its continent. The final eight double-page spreads include "Diving Deeper," with a thumbnail illustration and a meaty paragraph about each creature a page of statistics about "Our Blue Planet" (including this startling fact: "Less than 5 percent of all the oceans have been explored by humans.") and an excellent bibliography of websites and books. In the center of the book, there's a spread of "Ocean Facts by the Numbers," starting with 1 ("Less than 1 percent of water on Earth is freshwater.") and then by multiples of 100 up to 1,000,000,000,000.
Included on each page is a sidebar of information including the animal's class, habitat, aquatic regions, threats, and status. For the number 2, a humpback whale arches out of the water to form the curve of the number.
Halfway through the book, when it's time to count down, the colors reverse, with animals painted in blue against a shiny black page. For the numbers one to ten, each creature is drawn in black and white against the blue background. He uses pencil, brush, India ink, and computer to present ocean creatures and their habitats from one to ten and back again, incorporating the numbers into the bodies of a variety of endangered and threatened sea mammals, birds, fish, and even one giant tube worm. As a companion to his Caldecott Honor winner, Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet, which was illustrated in red, black, and white, McLiman's ocean counting book uses a deep blue hue.
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