Here Is the Coral Reef

by Madeleine Dunphy, Tom Leonard (Illustrator)

Overview

Set in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, this lyrical rhyming tale introduces young readers to some of the coral reef’s most striking residents. From the sleek shark to the colorful parrotfish to the deceptively beautiful sea anemone, each creature in this abundant undersea world relies on another for its existence. Beginning with coral, the very element that defines this ecosystem, Madeleine Dunphy uses a cumulative approach, combining simple yet forceful verse with repetition to reveal the fragile chain that links each of the plants and animals in this unique environment. Tom Leonard's vibrant paintings capture this miraculous circle of life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780988330276
Publisher:	Web of Life Children's Books
Publication date:	10/24/2012
Series:	Web of Life Children's Series , #3
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	6 MB
Age Range:	3 - 8 Years

About the Author

Madeleine Dunphy (author) Oakland, California & Tom Leonard (Illustrator) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Contributor residences (city, state or country if outside the US or Canada):

Madeleine Dunphy is an educational consultant who teaches children about endangered environments. She has visited many of the world's coral reefs and was inspired to write this book by the great diversity of life she found there.
Madeleine has written several books for children, including all of the books in the HERE IS THE... series. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband, Chris, and their daughter, Gwendolyn.

Tom Leonard's beautiful paintings have graced the pages of several children's books, including HERE IS THE AFRICAN SAVANNA by Madeleine Dunphy. His stunning artwork has been praised by Booklist as having "great visual flair," and School Library Journal wrote that his colors "delight the eye."
To illustrate this book, Tom used as many as one hundred pieces of reference. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Rose, and teaches at the University of the Arts.

Editorial Reviews

PreS-Gr 2Beginning simply with "Here is the coral reef," a cumulative text builds to describe various attributes of this colorful environment. With each turn of the page, the species of the reef are introduced along with the ways in which they are interrelated. First the corals, hard and soft, are pictured in beautiful purples, greens, reds, and soft blues. Next, three parrot fish are shown crunching corals, then several wrasses appear to clean the faces of the parrot fish, and so on, up to the appearance of an eel. Bright acrylic illustrations depict each creature, first in the distance and then front and center as it is introduced. Although the repetitive text doesn't sing, this vibrant, idealized picture of a southern hemisphere reef will grab and hold the attention of young viewers.Frances E. Millhouser, Chantilly Regional Library, VA

School Library Journal

Set beneath the coral sea of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, this forceful cumulative rhyming tale introduces some of the striking residents of the coral reef ecosystem: "Here is the coral/of all colors and shapes/that lives in clear waters/in this vivid seascape." Each spread adds two lines of rhyme about another resident: parrotfish, wrasses, cod, clownfish, black-tipped reef shark, manta ray, Hawksbill turtle, remoras, Moray eels, anemone, and sponge. Some drama is inserted when the Moray eel must escape from a shark, but all ends well. The text appears on the left quarter of the spread, framed in a pale blue border. Leonard uses the rest of the space to present undersea paintings in a vivid, nearly neon palette. The artist varies perspectives, giving viewers the impression that they are not only underwater at eye level with the reef's inhabitants, but sometimes at tooth level. (Picture book. 5-9)

Kirkus Reviews

Named an "Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children" by the National Science Teachers Association and Children's Book Council

Selected as a "Reading Rainbow Book"

"Set beneath the coral sea of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, this forceful cumulative rhyming tale introduces some of the striking residents of the coral reef ecosystem.... The artist varies perspectives, giving viewers the impression that they are not only underwater at level with the reef's inhabitants, but sometimes at tooth level."
—Kirkus Reviews

"[T]his vibrant, idealized picture of the southern hemisphere reef will grab and hold the attention of young viewers."
—School Library Journal

"This vividly illustrated book presents the interdependence of the various inhabitants of the ecosystem that is Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The repeating verse style will engage young readers as they gain an appreciation of the plants, fish, and other sea creatures that live in and around the reef."
—Science and Children

From the Publisher