Sea Soup: Zooplankton [Hardcover]

Mary M. Cerullo (Author), Bill Curtsinger (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2001 | Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up

A teaspoon of sea water can hold a soupy serving of a million zooplankton! These tiny animals often look like weird life forms from outer space or larger animals such as jellyfish.

In this newest volume (another volume: Sea Soup: Phytoplankton was published in December 1999), Mary Cerullos text answers intriguing questions about these tiny animals that have shaped our world, while Bill Curtsingers extraordinary photomicroscopy serves up tantalizing images of this sea soup. Many of the photos for these books were taken at Maines Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science and the Darling Marine Center, using an Axiophot 2 research microscope donated by Carl Zeiss, Inc.

This book has an accompanying teacher's guide: Sea Soup Teachers Guide: Discovering the Watery World of Phytoplankton and Zooplankton

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-A companion to this team's Sea Soup: Phytoplankton (Tilbury House, 1999), Zooplankton opens a pellucid window into the drifting world of mostly minute animals that, along with phytoplankton, form an aqueous "soup" that nourishes a wide variety of sea creatures from the tiniest copepods to gigantic blue whales. Curtsinger's often extraordinary color photos allow readers to envision the often microscopically small creatures delineated in the text, while Cerullo invites them to meet the fastest animal in the world and to discover how zooplankton can turn a submarine "invisible." This is a fascinating look at a watery zoo of creatures whose ecological importance is far beyond the measure of their size.

Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 4-7. Cerullo and Curtsinger, whose Sea Soup: Phytoplankton (1999) presented the tiny plants that drift in the oceans, now explore drifting animals such as krill, jellyfish, and the larval stages of many fish and crustaceans. On each double-page spread there is a single question--"What is the fastest animal in the world?"--accompanied by a greatly magnified photo and the answer--"Shaped like a bullet with antennae, the copepod, a tiny cousin of lobsters and crabs, is for its size the fastest animal of earth." The spread that follows offers several colorful clear photographs as well as a few paragraphs of information about copepods and how they compare with cheetahs (the fastest land animal). Other topics discussed within this question-and-answer format include zooplankton as food, zooplankton migration, and dangerous zooplankton. Intriguing. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 40 pages
• Publisher: Tilbury House Publishers (March 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0884482197
• ISBN-13: 978-0884482192
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 9.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,049,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Engaging and captivating, September 29, 2009

By 

Bri Meets Books (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Sea Soup: Zooplankton (Hardcover)

Sea Soup: Zooplankton introduces readers to the various forms of the organism. From the moment you open this book, stunning underwater images greet you. The layout is very attractive, and catches your eye immediately. There's splashes of color, vibrant photos in bubbles, but it still flows well, so you get all the information at an easy pace.

The opening starts off as if fiction and the letters cascade down the side of the page, a visual representation of a diver's descent down below:

"The moment they dropped into the dark,alien world, the searchers knew they were not alone. - (p.2, Sea Soup: Zooplankton)

The book talks directly to the reader, asking questions, inviting the reader to explore the world of the zooplankton. On one page, it's stark white, and in the middle, a bright colorful photo of a a jellyfish and the text, "Who's who in a zoo plankton zoo?" or "Are there zooplankton you don't ever want to bump into?" The corresponding pages then answer the question. This theme continues throughout the book, always engaging the reader into a discussion.

Reference wise, Sea Soup: Zooplankton packs a lot into a thin book. Sizes, their diets, the life cycles, and the various types of zooplankton are covered. Prior to reading this book, my plankton knowledge involved Spongebob Squarepants, and this book definitely filled in the gaps. There's a glossary and even an additional teacher's guide available from the publisher, for those who want more information.