The Deep End: Animal Life Underwater

Each title in this series presents information on an animal that lives under the sea. Easy-to-read text, full-color photographs, and many of the text features identified in the Common Core are the backbone of these books. The format is useful for helping students locate information on the animal. The presentation of text and photography make these titles appealing. At the end of each book a “science lab” page provides students the incentive to complete an activity about the animal.

Each title in this series presents information on an animal that lives under the sea. Easy-to-read text, full-color photographs, and many of the text features identified in the Common Core are the backbone of these books. The format is useful for helping students locate information on the animal. The presentation of text and photography make these titles appealing. At the end of each book a “science lab” page provides students the incentive to complete an activity about the animal.

There’s just enough information in these titles to satisfy the curiosity of young readers, while carefully controlled vocabulary, sentence structure, and page layout keep everything at an accessible level. Covering a single species within a larger group allows the authors to highlight their subjects’ special abilities, such as the great white shark’s hunting speed. However, in some cases the mixture of specifics and generalities becomes confusing. For example, in Green Sea Turtle, most of the facts presented apply to all sea turtles, though no other species are mentioned. Typical spreads feature a full-page photo on the right, with text and a smaller picture on the left. Selective labels and fact bubbles smoothly link images to the words. Reader-directed questions provide a critical-thinking component that ties in with Common Core requirements; a page turn usually reveals the answer within the next text block. These are solid choices, despite some vagueness around classification.