GREAT CARRIER REEF

A tribute to a decommissioned warship turned to a better purpose.

The aircraft carrier USS Oriskany, or “The Mighty O,” saw action in the Korean and Vietnamese wars but rather than being scrapped at the end of its career, was scuttled off the Florida coast to serve as an artificial reef. It “remains the largest ship ever reefed,” and a sense of its length and bulk comes through clearly in Wright’s atmospherically lit, realistically detailed illustrations—some of which are full wordless spreads. Along with explaining in her spare account and one of several afterwords the importance of natural reefs as habitats and how they are endangered, Stremer highlights the painstaking efforts required to clear out the hulk, rid it of toxic substances, tow it to its final location, and control its sinking so that it comes to rest in a stable position. Amazingly, divers sent to inspect it only hours later found sea life already checking it out. Though Aimée M. Bissonette’s Shipwreck Reefs (2021), illustrated by Adèle Leyris, provides glimpses of a variety of manufactured reefs and closer looks at what lives on them, here the author’s quicker closing tally of marine residents gives the tale a properly triumphant finish. The groups of human workers appearing in a few scenes are racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Recycling at its best.