Parrotfish and Sunken Ships: Exploring a Tropical Reef

by Jim Arnosky

Are you ready to discover the treasures to be found in a coral reef? Jim Arnosky is an excellent guide. He bases his uniquely informative narrative on explorations he and his wife, Deanna, made near the Florida Keys in waters once sailed by pirates. Talking directly to his readers, Jim Arnosky melds art and text to create an original, engrossing nonfiction picture book. If you've ever wondered about life underwater, this is a book you'll enjoy.

Genres: Picture Books, Nonfiction, Childrens

32 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2007

About the author

Jim Arnosky was born in New York City, NY Sept 1, 1946. He was raised in Pennsylvania. Jim graduated from high school in Philadelphia and joined the US Naval Reserves. His active duty took him to Maryland and Bremerhaven, Germany.

In 1976 Jim and his wife Deanna moved to Vermont with their two daughters where they have lived in an old farmhouse for the past 28 years. 17 of those years were spent raising sheep.

Jim is self taught in writing, art and the natural sciences. He has written and illustrated 86 books on nature subjects and has illustrated 46 other books written by various authors. He has been awarded the Christopher Medal, Orbis Pictus Honor, ALA Gordon Award, and Outstanding Science book awards from National Science Teachers Associations.

Jim loves to fish, boat, and play his guitar. In his work, he uses a Betacam SP video camcorder with a 1600 mm lens to record the wildlife he and Deanna find all across the country.

Reviews

[Katerina Spoonhour · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parrot and Sunken Ships is a book about Jim Arnosky along with his wife in a journey to the reef near the Florida Keys to explore the area where pirates were known to sail. As they travel on their boat the Crawfish they scuba dive to show pirate and Spanish ships and how their ships cause treasure hunters to visit the area. The illustrations are painted and show the detail of diverse sea life that lives in the area such as parrot which the couple studies mainly before going back to the dock at the end of the day.
The illustrations were beautiful and it was impressive how many fish species that were labeled throughout the pages as well as a find the kind of types of fish near the end. When reading the information was in large paragraphs which seemed a little overwhelming at times but overall the book was a realistic nonfiction exploration. The boating part was fun to read along with the transition over the different environmental shifts that would mention the coral and fish diversity.
In a classroom, I would use in the older grades as it seemed higher reading level due to the large paragraphs and more science based content. The illustration would be cool if featured in a slide about the reef and learning biodiversity of the sea. It could possible liked by children based on the cool pictures that identify the fish and the guessing page which could be a fun activity for any grade.

[Lauren Dooley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a nonfiction picture book about things found underwater and discoveries that have been made. It gives a lot of insight on many different creatures living in our earth's oceans and would be great for a student who wants to learn more about the ocean or for a classroom that is doing things in science or geography that pertain to oceans. I enjoyed this book, however, it is a little large for small children. I would use this in my classroom to give my children a visual on some of the things we are discussing.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dammit! Now I really want to go to the Florida Keys! Beautifully illustrated, packed with interesting info this book reminds us how awesome the world is and how unique the various animals of the world are! There is also treasure out there to be found!

[Cws]

J578.778

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no book I could possibly love more. Great art. Informative. Honest.