Welcome to week 2 of Peachtree Publisher’s Fins, Wings & Things Blog Tour. During this week's countdown to Earth Day I'm celebrating things with fins. Come back Thursday for an interview with author Melissa Stewart , and Friday for ideas on how you can protect rivers, lakes and oceans. And make sure you enter this week’s Book Giveaway (below).
A Place for Fish
By Melissa Stewart, illustrated by Higgins Bond
32 pages, for ages 6 -10
Peachtree Publishers 2011
There’s a lot to love in this book, starting with the range maps filling the endpapers. So I was engaged before I even reached the title page – but what do you expect when you team up an award-winning writer with a scientific illustrator?
Fish, writes Melissa, make our world a better place. But sometimes people do things that make it hard for them to live and grow. Throughout this book she shows the different roles fish play in their ecological communities, and how children can help make sure there will always be a place for these finny creatures.
Some fish are harmed by the chemicals power plants produce when they burn coal. What can we do? Find other ways to make electricity – or even reduce the amount we use….
And then there are the sidebars and fish profiles. As Stewart highlights the diversity amongst fish found across North America, she focusing on the specific environmental challenges each species faces. The lined seahorse of the Chesapeake Bay was affected by fertilizers washing into the bay. Salmon populations declined when sediment from logging roads eroded into their streams. But in each case, people took action to help make a place so fish could live and grow.
Why do we need fish? They’re part of a food chain that includes bears, birds and even otters. Melissa lists things children can do to help fish, tosses in a few fishy facts (lipstick contains ground-up fish scales) and provides lots of resources.
Book Giveaway
You could win your very own copy of A Place for Fish. This particular contest is limited to folks who live in the United States. Entering is simple- just send an email to: sueheaven{at}gmail{dot}com.
I invite you to leave a comment about what things you are doing, or will do to protect watery places and the fish living in them, and consider becoming a “follower”.
The contest for this book ends Sunday April 25.
Remember to come back Thursday for an interview with Melissa Stewart.
Check out the complete tour schedule at Peachtree.
We try to instill awareness in our little one by exposing him often to streams and lakes as well as the animals that live in them. We also talk about how everything flows into our water ways (from our streets, yard, etc.)
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