Customer Reviews

Out of the Ocean

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a very sweet book for any age, any setting, to read over and over. I'm buying a stack to use as gifts.

Awsome photos and collage art make this a visually stimulating book for children. The second graders in my class loved it and clearly understood the deeper meaning of appreciating all of the gifts we receive each day - sunrise, air, water, etc.

In a time of mushrooming materialism and tearing technomania, this delightful book for all ages pays homage to life's precious treasures that can be so easily taken for granted if we are not careful to notice them. Debra Frasier's enchanting collages combine cutouts, photographs, and words to eloquently remind us of the simple pleasures that are right under our noses if we remain open and take a moment to appreciate them.

I read this book for the first time when a toddler that I watch picked it out of her stack of books. I didn't know what to expect, but found that I was captivated from the very first sentence. The words are like poetry. The conversation between mother and daughter about the ocean flows beautifully, and actually caused me choke up a bit. I ran out buy it for MY child's literature collection!

The previous reviewers described this book so well that I don't have to! I just wanted to add that this book has "An Ocean Journal" section at the back. It basically describes all the beach items (natural and manmade jetsam) that have been photographed or created with paper art in the book. Shells, burnished glass, ropes, rafts, skate egg pouches (my favorite; for some strange reason I kept some on a shelf in my residence for awhile), wooden shoes have listings. Frasier then goes on to explain water, the sun, the moon, waves, and sand under the heading "Things Too Big to Carry Home". She even lists some flora to check out at beaches- beach sunflower, morning glories, sea oats, etc. The journal ends with interesting illustration notes. My strongest at-any-age-period memories are of East Coast beaches, so this book is a welcome addition to my daughter's library. She loves the poetry-tinged prose and investigating the photos. After a fall storm in Wildwood Crest, NJ (circa 2005), we found eleven shovels, about ten sand molds of various sizes, and a small doll. We still actually use some of these items in our sandbox, but the doll has been put away, as she is a symbol of my sacred beach memories from that time. (I keep found seashells on a low windowsill for my younger daughter to explore, as she has not been heavily "beachified" as of yet.) This book just reinforces our call to the sea and its plethora of gifts.

'Out of the Ocean' is a very nicely layered book; it's almost like a combination of two books, with the latter part serving as a more detailed analysis for the initial children's story. Combining unique construction paper artwork with real photographs, Debra Frasier brings to life a child's perspective of having the ocean beachfront as one's everyday playground. She speaks of tangible "treasures" that wash up on shore (e.g., seashells, colorful burnished glass, messages in bottles, sharks' teeth) and intangible treasures (e.g., natural phenomena such as the sun "rising out of the ocean," the miracle of the ocean itself, etc.) -Perhaps most interesting, however, are the detailed glossary entries that she provides in the second part of the book; every issue and/or topic breached in the initial portion of the book is contextualized and expanded in the latter half of the book. Gently folding in historical, environmental, scientific and ethical perspectives, Fraser succeeds in substantiating her book as well as presenting the reader with a wondrous vision of the Vero Beach region of Florida.

a BEAUTIFUL book! My students loved looking at it over and over there is SO MUCH to see! I suggest buying more than 1 copy so children don't have to wait to enjoy it.