Into the deep by Dr Mark Norman and David Paul

Black dog books, 2010. ISBN 978 174203151 4.
(Age 8+) Non Fiction. Highly recommended. Another marvellous non fiction title from black dog books will thrill primary students with its ease of accessing information through its layout, brief but very usable index, glossary and absolutely engrossing pictures. I loved it; I loved trawling through the time line, only more a depth line of going down and down into the ocean, being shown what animals live at each level. Each double page spread, turned on its side, shows a left hand side depth scale, with ever increasing ranges of colour from pale blue at the top of the ocean going through all shades of darker blue until 16 metres when black takes over going down to the depth of 11 kilometres. Hard to imagine, but this handy scale combined with the colour, makes it much easier to understand.
I was enthralled with the photographs. Dr Who's creators must have used some of the images of these animals for their monsters! And kids will love them. The rows of teeth on pages 18 and 19 will take their breath away. Alongside the depth line are a series of snippets of information about the fish, and interestingly, in yellow, to differentiate it form the factual information, is a comparison of what else would be down this deep. At 6 km, for example, the book tells us that this is the deepest that a submarine with people on board can go. A must for all school libraries and what a wonderful book to share with a class or borrow to take home.
Fran Knight