Ocean Planet: Animals of the Sea and Shore

by Ben Rothery

Overview

Ocean Planet is the stunning new book from natural-history illustrator Ben Rothery – and offers a rich exploration of the creatures from the coastal and offshore waters of the world - from penguins, seagulls, polar bears and seahorses, to plankton and sharks.

NSTA-CBC Outstanding Science 2021 Title

The first Rothery book to explore ocean life: Pacific walrus, king penguin, narwhal, great white shark, squid, seahorse, moray eel, humpback whale, manta ray, orca, and many more rendered, in exquisite, dramatic detail. Includes shore dwellers who depend on the sea: Polar bears and otters of course, but also ring-tailed lemurs, Bengal tigers, and British Columbia wolves. Explores extreme ocean environments: Tropical reefs and polar seas, islands and open oceans, surface waters and the ocean abyss, kelp forests and mangroves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780884489160
Publisher:	Tilbury House Publishers
Publication date:	10/05/2021
Series:	Rothery's Animal Planet Series
Pages:	80
Sales rank:	641,165
Product dimensions:	10.70(w) x 14.60(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Ben Rothery is a detail-obsessed illustrator from Norwich, England, via Cape Town. He combines multiple processes to create intricate and delicate illustrations and repeating patterns, full of fine detail and vibrant color. Much of Ben’s work is inspired or informed by his love of nature—he grew up wanting variously to be a shark, a dinosaur or David Attenborough crossed with Indiana Jones, but settled on illustration as a way to bring those fantasies to life on paper. Ben works from a small studio in London, which he shares with an unnecessarily large collection of very sharp pencils.

Editorial Reviews

"If there’s an animal enthusiast on your holiday list, have a look at Ben Rothery’s books about the natural world. These are beautiful works of nonfiction, large in size—always nice in a gift—and rich with illustrations that are so finely executed that you may mistake them for photographs. In “Hidden Planet,” “Ocean Planet” and “Sensational Butterflies,” Mr. Rothery writes as engagingly as he draws. “Who would think, to look at them, that the elephant’s closest relatives are the manatee, the dugong, and the rock hyrax?” he asks. “Or that seals, sea lions and walruses are not related to whales, dolphins or manatees, but rather to bears and weasels?” Children ages 7-13 (and their parents) won’t merely enjoy themselves with these books; they’ll also learn something."

Holiday Gift Books Review 2021-Children's Books - Wall Street Journal - Meghan Cox Gurdon

2021-07-14
From plankton to polar bears, an artist’s gallery of animals familiar and exotic.

As in Hidden Planet and Sensational Butterflies (both 2021), Rothery supplies generous quantities of facts and comments about each of his subjects, but the obsessively detailed, photorealistic art easily takes pride of place. Aside from a map and one diagram showing oceanic zones, he sticks to portraits—each designed for individual examination, so not to scale even when a half-dozen or more share an oversized double-page spread, and generally placed against monochrome or minimally detailed backdrops. Though on occasion sheer technical proficiency gets the upper hand (the deep-sea anglerfish, for example, looks dried out, and the dragon moray eel is hard to distinguish from the coral behind it because depth of field has been sacrificed for visual dazzle), the lifelike poses and angles of view range from dramatic to, in the case of a blue-footed booby in a mating dance or a contemplative puffin, even comical. If his nature notes aren’t systematic or he’s not averse to wandering away from oceanic realms to slip in the occasional arbitrary-feeling land animal, viewers will still be hard put to look away from the pictures—or to miss out on his strong and contagious affinity for the creatures he portrays. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Informationally catch as catch can, but the visuals are as gorgeous as they come. (index) (Nonfiction. 8-13)

Kirkus Reviews