"Explore the vast ocean alongside scientists from around the world, navigating the various zones and discovering fascinating and often never-before-seen ocean creatures in this appealing title about the research of the Census of Marine Life. Readers will accompany researchers as they glide through shallow waters with scuba gear, dive to the bottom of the ocean in a tiny submersible, and study images sent from the cameras on a remotely operated underwater vehicle.... Ocean fans will devour this book!" —Library Media Connection

Gr 5–9—The Census of Marine Life was conducted globally between 2000 and 2010 by more than 2000 researchers, and this book takes readers with the scientists from the shallows to the ocean depths in their quest to identify species. Picture-book size and packed with exhilarating photographs of astonishing underwater creatures, the narrative describes the work of the scuba divers, often using the second-person voice for immediacy. These census takers used such tools as light boxes to count and capture nighttime reef creatures and an ROV (remotely operated underwater vehicle) where necessary. They also extracted DNA from various creatures in order to construct a library of ocean life and made contour maps of the ocean floor using sound waves. Text boxes explain technical concepts such as chemosynthesis, marine snow, moving plates, DNA, and water pressure. Pungent quotes from marine scientists are sprinkled throughout. Sometimes there's so much information on each spread that it's almost distracting, but the photos are excellent in quality and plentiful. This engaging volume is fun for browsing, useful for assignments, and inspiring for budding marine scientists.—Frances E. Millhouser, formerly at Chantilly Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA

This strikingly illustrated book takes its readers on a series of research voyages exploring the ocean from its shallow edges to unfathomable depths during the recently completed ten-year International Census of Marine Life. Clearly organized text and pictures combine to introduce newly discovered marine creatures of all kinds: the Big Red jellyfish, with a bell the size of a door; mussels surrounding deep brine pools and feeding on methane-eating bacteria; zombie worms on a whale skeleton. Readers are invited to imagine diving in open water, exploring continental slopes inside a submersible vehicle, sorting through muck from the ocean bottom and sitting in a shipboard control structure watching displays from a remotely operated underwater vehicle. The excitement and challenge of discovery is tangible. Scientific photographs printed on blue-to-black background (darkening as the text descends into the depths) illustrate animals mentioned in a nicely legible text, mostly printed in white. There are clear captions, quotations from involved scientists and sidebars explaining important concepts like bioluminescence and chemosynthesis. Diagrams indicate where the voyage takes place. Rich, revealing and rewarding. (glossary, source notes, selected bibliography, suggestions for further learning, index, acknowledgements)(Nonfiction. 8-14)