Ocean Sunlight: How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas

by Molly Bang, Penny Chisholm, Molly Bang (Illustrator)

Overview

Acclaimed Caldecott artist Molly Bang and award-winning scientist Penny Chisholm present a stunning, sweeping view of our ever-changing oceans.

In this timely book, acclaimed Caldecott artist Molly Bang and award-winning M.I.T. professor Penny Chisholm use poetic language and dazzling illustrations to introduce the oceanic world. From tiny aquatic plants to the biggest whale or fish, Bang and Chisholm present a moving, living picture of the miraculous balance sustaining each life cycle and food chain deep within our wondrous oceans. On land or in the deep blue sea, we are all connected—and we are all a part of a grand living landscape. Award-winning scientist Penny Chisholm, a leading expert on oceans, packs Ocean Sunlight with clear, simple science, illuminated by Molly Bang's wondrous illustrations. This informative, joyous book will help children understand and celebrate the astonishing role our oceans play in human life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780545273220
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	05/01/2012
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	79,704
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.20(d)
Lexile:	670L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Molly Bang has written and illustrated more than twenty books for young readers, including When Sophie Gets Angry — Really, Really Angry... ; Ten, Nine, Eight; and The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher, each of which were Caldecott Honor books. Bang divides her time between Falmouth, Massachusetts, and Northern California.
Penny Chisholm is a professor at M.I.T., where she has been teaching Ecology for more than thirty-five years. Her long list of prestigious awards includes the National Medal of Science, awarded at the White House in 2013.

Editorial Reviews

As she did in Living Sunlight and My Light, Bang creates a character out of the sun, this time focusing on its role in the ocean’s ecosystems: “My light-energy,/ first caught by phytoplankton,/ flows through/ the ocean’s chains of life.” Bang creates dimension and visual drama with her use of gold, blues, and black, forming an ethereal habitat for phytoplankton, jellyfish, and bioluminescent creatures. The sense of movement underscores the message about energy transfer between plants and animals. Ages 4–8. (May)

Publishers Weekly

*"An awe-inspiring lesson in photosynthesis goes under the sea." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

From the Publisher

Gr 3–5—Bang and Chisolm have written about the sun before, Bang in My Light (2004) and the pair in Living Sunlight: How Plants Bring the Earth to Life (2009, both Scholastic). Here they turn their attention to the ocean and its vast population of phytoplankton—the widespread "meadow" of the sea. The simple text follows the food chain from the tiniest of green plants (powered into life by the sun) to the biggest predators dependent on plankton-gobblers for food. The authors explain photosynthesis and the ocean layer exchange wrought by sunlight-driven currents, and even touch on the life below, where the strongest sunbeam cannot reach. Bang's stylized, dynamic illustrations are a perfect foil for the well-spaced text superimposed upon them. Some will balk at the book's opening statement: "All ocean life depends on me" (the sun), being aware of the strange world of thermal vents, colonized by bacteria capable of converting chemical compounds into food, many existing in a biome with equally unique life-forms that abound in this eerie, dark environment. In the extensive "Notes About This Book" section Bang explains "There are so many important, related concepts that we could not possibly cover them all in this book." However, she does provide much further information on the topics raised in the text, sure to be a boon to classroom teachers, homeschoolers, and puzzled parents alike.—Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY

School Library Journal

An awe-inspiring lesson in photosynthesis goes under the sea. As in this pair's previous Living Sunlight (2009), the sun addresses readers to explain the role of solar energy to support the chain of life--this time in the ocean. A summary of the process of photosynthesis occupies the first few spreads. Warm yellow sunlight suffuses these pages and small insets accompany the textual explanation of how plants make sugar from water and carbon dioxide. Then the focus moves to the sea, first near the surface, where phytoplankton grow and multiply, and then to the depths, where nutrient-rich marine "snow" sifts down to feed creatures who live away from sunlight. The transformation of sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into phytoplankton ("the great invisible pasture of the sea"), on which feed zooplankton and progressively larger animals, is set against background paintings of rich marine blues and greens. The churning and recycling of these nutrients is shown again to be a gift of the sun: "My sunlight powers winds that build great storms and mix the water layers of the seas." Bang's art is richly kinetic, with its whorls and stipples indicating plant and animal life in profusion, from the swirling microscopic creatures to graceful large fish and whales. Readers will want to visit more than once to capture both the science and the abundant sense of celebration here. (Informational picture book. 5-11)

Kirkus Reviews