Ocean Life: Tide Pool Creatures

by Steck-Vaughn

A Book

Genres: Animals, Chapter Books, Nonfiction, Science

40 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 1999

Reviews

[Katie Hutson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book, Ocean Life, Tide Pool Creatures is a small chapter book that is about different marine life. In the first chapter, it is talking about what is a tide pool and what a tide pool is. It talks about seeing different inhabitants that are in the tide pools and what is high tide and low tide. In chapter two, you learn about the different flower creatures, such as the anemone, which is related to the jellyfish. Chapter three is about the swimming creatures such as the different fish like the shannies, pipefish, the clingfish, rocklings, and then the sea scorpion. In chapter 4, it talks about the different animals and if they are creatures. The animals that they talked about were the limpet, a kind of ocean snail, a chiton, and a barnacle. Each creature is explained with what they are and how they survive in the tide pools by clinging to rocks. In chapter five, titled creeping creatures is talking about the different types of crabs that can be found in the tide pools. The crabs are the velvet crab, the piecrust crab and finally the hermit crab. The chapter talks about how the crabs have four legs used for walking and two are used to pinching things, called their pincers. But the hermit crab is different; they have two pincers like the others except one is a lot bigger than the other. The bigger one is used to block out the predators when the crab is in its shell. The last creature that is not a crab, is a the lobster, when it is in the tide pool it does its best to hid and not get eaten by its predators, but the lobster is a predator itself. Chapter six, Spiny Creatures, talks about the different types of starfish and sea urchins. With the starfish, most of them have five arms but it can have up to 50 arms. Which is a cool fact that I did not know. With the sea urchin, it is one of the prettiest things that you can see in the ocean, but they are poisonous to other animals. It is a carnivore and eats both plants and animals. In chapter seven, Sluggish Creatures, is about the different “sluggish” things that you find in the ocean. Like the sea slugs, which are members of the mollusk family. The sea slugs actually have stinging cells that help them ward off predators because of the sea anemones that they eat. Chapter eight talks about two-shelled creatures like the mussels. The mussels live in groups called colonies and they attach themselves to rocks with their foot. In chapter nine, it talks about the different hunting creatures such as the sea snails or Whelk snails. The whelk snails build its shell that it lives in by eating different things. If the shell is dark, then the whelk has been eating mussels. If the whelk is pale, then it has been eating barnacles. If the whelk has been eating a mixed diet then the shell will be striped. The other hunter that the chapter talks abut it the octopus. Even octopus’ can go into the tide pools. The final chapter talks about what life is like living in the tide pools. Living in the tide pools, the animals are putting their life in danger because of the different predators that can get to them now that they are in shallow waters. These animals are also different looking than the ones that are usually found in the ocean because they have to adapt to living in the smaller, warmer area.

The general age range of this book would be primary because of the different chapters that it has and also the use of higher-level words.

The book had different images for each of the chapters, the pictures are bright and colorful and actually images that someone has taken. They are not illustrations, which is something that is more beneficial to the primary reader.

The book should be read because it provides great information. Every chapter has different facts and images for the children to read and in the back of the book they have a glossary of the words that were used in the book. That is something that is beneficial to both the teacher and the students. When the students are reading it and they do not know a word, then they are able to flip to the back of the book and look up the word. All the words that are in bold which the child may have not seen those words before. This book should be read either for fun or during a science lesson on Marine Biology.

[Tracey Jo Williams]

Book about ocean life and what you can see in the ocean.