From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8A description of a weeklong excursion made by a group of Boston middle school students to the Bay of Fundy in Maine. The narrative alternates between their conversations, which reflect their exuberant reactions to everything from mud to kelp, and their teachers explanations of the tidal-zone habitat. Full-color photographs glisten with crisp details of the plants and animals of these North Atlantic tide pools, as well as with images of the youngsters as they explore and learn. To illustrate the rapid rise of the tide, one photograph shows one of the girls with her feet on dry land, while another shows her in the same place 45 minutes later, with the water practically up to her waist. In a way, this is like a trip with Ms. Frizzle for older kids. Nevertheless, there are some insensitive ethnic remarks. One of the boys is wearing two pairs of socks for warmth and remarks that his feet are so smooshed that he feels like one of those old Chinese women. Later in the text, the nightly onslaught of mosquitoes is described, If bugs were people, this place would be China. Its unfortunate that the book is marred by these lapses, as the explanations and photographs of the plant and animal life in a place with some of the most extreme tides in the world are well done.Frances E. Millhouser, Chantilly Regional Library, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Children used to hopping aboard the Magic School Bus won't hesitate to tag along when a group of Boston-area middle-schoolers sets out on an actual excursion to study marine wildlife along Maine's Cobscook Bay. In the dialogue-heavy text, Goodman mixes students' wisecracks, observations, and questions with minilectures from adult guides to present quick but specific overviews of what a tidal zone is, and what lives there or offshore. In bright color photographs, Michael J. Doolittle portrays not only close-ups of that wildlife but also the young scientists themselves, clambering over rocks, holding starfish and other finds, taking measurements, and, occasionally, acting up. Like the author's two previous "field trips,"
Bats, Bugs, and Biodiversity: Adventures in the Amazonian Rain Forest (1995) and
Stones, Bones, and Petroglyphs: Digging into Southwest Archaeology (1998), this celebrates the pleasures of hands-on, outdoor science with an inviting mix of fact and frolic. Glossary; brief bibliography.
John Peters
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
