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calistareads's review against another edition
4.0
This was so well done. A girl is looking at this book in the library about the coral reefs. As she is reading it, her imagination takes over and all these facts about the ocean begin to appear and the room fills with water and she and her book are swimming all over the ocean. We learn about fish cities, the coral reefs and how they house most of the life in the ocean. This book is packed with facts and we see how it all looks in the head of the girl.
I like that when she is done, she is wet on the steps of the library and all the kids want to read the book for the experience. It’s a wonderful blend of whimsy and how coral reefs work. It’s a great way to tell a serious story.
The nephew was even interested in this story. He thought it would be cool if the library filled with water like that. I said it would ruin all the books and he looked at me and said it’s all pretend, silly. He would like to go scuba diving someday. He gave this 4 stars. He thought the sharks were a bit scary.
I like that when she is done, she is wet on the steps of the library and all the kids want to read the book for the experience. It’s a wonderful blend of whimsy and how coral reefs work. It’s a great way to tell a serious story.
The nephew was even interested in this story. He thought it would be cool if the library filled with water like that. I said it would ruin all the books and he looked at me and said it’s all pretend, silly. He would like to go scuba diving someday. He gave this 4 stars. He thought the sharks were a bit scary.
maidmarianlib's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting set up for the information by framing it with a girl reading a book. Solid information.
readaloud_mom's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.75
The illustrations of this book show a child being transported to the Belize Reef via a magical book. (I had initially read this as a flight of imagination, but my child has pointed out that the character appears wet when she returns to the library, so maybe it's intended to be more straight-up fantasy.) The protagonist this time is a white girl. (With a short haircut that is perhaps not entirely gender-conforming!) At the end of the book, she collects her interracial friend group around the magic book and the whole crew takes off swimming!
Typical for Jason Chin, the text doesn't refer to the fantasy at all, and instead narrates a lot of facts about coral reefs and the creatures that live there. I was less impressed by this text than I am by some of Jason Chin's later works, but I did like the slightly off-beat focus on interdependent relationships between different creatures in this "city of the sea".
Typical for Jason Chin, the text doesn't refer to the fantasy at all, and instead narrates a lot of facts about coral reefs and the creatures that live there. I was less impressed by this text than I am by some of Jason Chin's later works, but I did like the slightly off-beat focus on interdependent relationships between different creatures in this "city of the sea".
benedorm's review against another edition
4.0
This is a hard book to review -- hard even for me to form an opinion about. I think the number one thing it calls to my attention is that it's very, very hard to both write and illustrate a children's book.
It's not that it can't be done -- the solo works of Dr. Seuss, Lillian Hoban, and Eric Carle, just to name a few, show that a singular vision can produce books of breathtaking imagination and beauty. But far too often, someone who tries to handle both creative parts simply proves that he or she is much better at one than the other. That's unfortunately the case with this book.
Jason Chin is a stunningly impressive artist. His detailed, textured watercolors are beautiful to look at, and do honor and justice to his aquatic subjects. Additionally, in this volume, the pictures tell a story -- a story of a young girl who goes to the library, selects this very same book about coral reefs, and, as she reads, is transported beneath the waves to see and imagine the creatures that live there. It's elegantly done, and I took real joy in the art.
The prose -- ah, the prose is the problem. It's dreadfully clunky, oddly repetitious, and inconsistent in the reading level of its vocabulary. It doesn't even hit the Bobbie Kalman level of workmanlike competence. Other reviewers have complained about the didacticism, and I found that irritating too, but it's not just that it's didactic -- it's that it lacks smoothness and grace.
I give it four stars, because I think the art is more good than the prose is bad. I'd love to see a book such as this win an award like the Caldecott. But it isn't a classic because of the text, and that's a real shame. In the future, I'd love to see Chin collaborate with a writer, and see if his next work couldn't reach that rarified status.
It's not that it can't be done -- the solo works of Dr. Seuss, Lillian Hoban, and Eric Carle, just to name a few, show that a singular vision can produce books of breathtaking imagination and beauty. But far too often, someone who tries to handle both creative parts simply proves that he or she is much better at one than the other. That's unfortunately the case with this book.
Jason Chin is a stunningly impressive artist. His detailed, textured watercolors are beautiful to look at, and do honor and justice to his aquatic subjects. Additionally, in this volume, the pictures tell a story -- a story of a young girl who goes to the library, selects this very same book about coral reefs, and, as she reads, is transported beneath the waves to see and imagine the creatures that live there. It's elegantly done, and I took real joy in the art.
The prose -- ah, the prose is the problem. It's dreadfully clunky, oddly repetitious, and inconsistent in the reading level of its vocabulary. It doesn't even hit the Bobbie Kalman level of workmanlike competence. Other reviewers have complained about the didacticism, and I found that irritating too, but it's not just that it's didactic -- it's that it lacks smoothness and grace.
I give it four stars, because I think the art is more good than the prose is bad. I'd love to see a book such as this win an award like the Caldecott. But it isn't a classic because of the text, and that's a real shame. In the future, I'd love to see Chin collaborate with a writer, and see if his next work couldn't reach that rarified status.
cweichel's review against another edition
4.0
This book is set up like Chin's Redwoods. In this one a young girl in a library begins to read a book about coral reefs and ends up transported into one. The book is full of information about the different kinds of coral and the many animals that make their home on the reefs. The back matter contains additional information about how coral reefs are threatened, and detailed information about the symbiotic partnership between coral and algae. I also appreciate the author's note where he writes about the research he went through and provides a list of books and websites he used.
booksandbosox's review against another edition
4.0
http://librarianosnark.blogspot.com/2013/03/bluebonnet-2013-2014.html
beecheralyson's review against another edition
4.0
Okay it seems funny to mix magical realism with nonfiction but Chin is great at it.
literacydocent's review against another edition
4.0
Just as he did with Redwoods, Jason Chin combines nonfiction text about a specific location with beautiful illustrations. I appreciate that his characters always "enter" the location, in this text the coral reef, through the reading of an actual book. He illustrates the idea that reading "can take you places" brilliantly.
kyndal's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
2.0
This book reads like a text book. Its saving grace is the extraordinary art.
brucefarrar's review against another edition
5.0
In a large library, a girl plucks a book titled Coral Reefs off the shelf. As she begins to read, she also begins to imagine. And as she does, the library starts to transform itself into the reef. Chin has painted a beautiful watercolor imaginary background for his text, turning an introduction about the biology of choral polyps, predator and prey, food chains, and the ecology of the coral reefs, lagoons, and the ocean written on a tenth grade reading level into a picture book that portrays the power of the human imagination to transform the hard facts from the printed page into a mental facsimile of the thing itself, and share the experience with others.