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About Habitats: Oceans

About Habitats: Oceans
by Cathryn Sill, illustrated by John Sill
Peachtree, 2012.  Unpaged.  Nonfiction

     One of a series of books about the earth's biomes, Oceans is a fine beginning nature book for early readers or pre-schoolers.  With only a sentence or two on each page leading into simple but lovely illustrations of the ocean and its plants and creatures, Oceans takes on the character of a read-aloud picture book acquainting youngsters with polar oceans, subtropical oceans, Pacific and Indian Oceans, bearing in mind that all these oceans are joined together into one great body of water. Smaller versions of the plates are appended with more information for older children.  Oceans was chosen by the National Science Teachers Association as one of the Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students for 2012.  The book also has an implied spiritual component, extremely unusual for science books these days.  It is dedicated "To the One who created oceans"  Genesis 1:9-10.

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