LIFE IN A CORAL REEF

This colorful entry in the long-running Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series introduces the world of coral reefs with simple concepts and Jenkins’s signature collage illustrations. Nicely contrasting the large size of one example, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, with the tiny coral polyps that comprise its bulk, Pfeffer goes on to describe polyp reproduction and a variety of sea creatures found in this habitat. With no more than a short paragraph or two per page, her text should be well within the capabilities of early elementary-school readers, although they may need some vocabulary help. The series’s landscape format is particularly well suited to the underwater scenes, in which even the background blues vary and the layers of cut and torn textured papers add depth. Would-be divers will enjoy identifying the silhouettes on the end papers: snappers and four-eyed butterfly fish, a shark and flashlight fish, all identified in the text (but they may wonder about the Moorish Idol, which appears nameless on the endpapers and in an early illustration). Two “Find Out More” pages conclude this attractive presentation. (Informational picture book. 5-9)