PROFESSOR ASTRO CAT'S DEEP SEA VOYAGE

The feline science explorer conducts a tour of the world’s oceans.

Though readers who have navigated Miranda Krestovnikoff’s Ocean: Exploring Our Blue Planet, illustrated by Jill Calder (2020), or any of the many like ventures will find the territory and content familiar, the professor’s enthusiasm (“KNOWLEDGE AWAITS!”) and Newman’s busy, blocky scenes of sea life and landforms lend extra vim to the adventure. There are bits of comedy and side commentary, but generally the members of the bright-eyed animal crew familiar from previous expeditions are all business, asking leading questions or pointing significantly to underscore the professor’s neat, legible blocks of observations and explanations. After first gathering on the beach for a look at tides, tide pools, and erosion, the explorers dive for close looks at diverse habitats from kelp forests to shipwrecks, with occasional pauses to study broad topics like food webs or plate tectonics. Following encounters with whales and sharks, fish, birds, and dozens of other marine denizens at every depth, the voyagers land on the Galápagos Islands, split up to visit the poles, regather for quick ganders at how oceans are being threatened and protected, then close out with a final spray of “Factoroids”: “More people have stepped on the surface of the Moon than have been to the Mariana Trench.”

Just the ticket for budding naturalists with a serious interest in our planet’s remotest reaches.