10 Best Oceans & Seas Books

Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction * New York Times Bestseller * Starred Booklist and Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick * A Huffington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year * One of the Best Books of the Month on Goodreads * Library Journal Best Sci-Tech Book of the Year * An American Library Association Notable Book of the Year ” Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus does for the creature what Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk did for raptors.” — New Statesman , UK ” One of the best science books of the year.” — Science Friday , NPR Another New York Times bestseller from the author of The Good Good Pig , this “fascinating…touching…informative…entertaining” ( Daily Beast ) book explores the emotional and physical world of the octopus–a surprisingly complex, intelligent, and spirited creature–and the remarkable connections it makes with humans. In pursuit of the wild, solitary, predatory octopus, popular naturalist Sy Montgomery has practiced true immersion journalism. From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, she has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities–gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma. Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food. Scientists have only recently accepted the intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees but now are watching octopuses solve problems and are trying to decipher the meaning of the animal’s color-changing techniques. With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures” ( Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick), Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusk as she tells a unique love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds.

Picture yourself on a sunlit, sugar sand beach before a turquoise sea. Now picture yourself on a different beach every month of the year! This “Wish You Were There!” calendar transports you to a tropical paradise all year long. You can almost hear the waves lapping at the sand in this large format calendar with its twelve dazzling full color photographs. Printed with soy-based inks on FSC certified paper, this wall calendar features large monthly grids that offer ample room for jotting notes, along with six bonus months of July through December of 2020. Also includes moon phases (CST), standard U.S. and international holidays.

Julia Rothman’s best-selling illustrated Anatomy series takes a deep dive into the wonders of the sea with Ocean Anatomy. Follow Rothman’s inquisitive mind and perceptive eye along shorelines, across the open ocean, and below the waves for an artistic exploration of the watery universe. Through her drawings, discover how the world’s oceans formed, why the sea is salty, and the forces behind oceanic phenomena such as rogue waves. Colorful anatomical profiles of sea creatures from crustacean to cetacean, surveys of seafaring vessels and lighthouses, and the impact of plastic and warming water temperatures are just part of this compendium of curiosities that will entertain and educate readers of all ages. Also available in this series: Nature Anatomy, Farm Anatomy, Food Anatomy, and Nature Anatomy Notebook

Spark your little girl’s interest in science with Science! STEM Sticker Adventure by Hopscotch Girls. The world of science is an exciting place for little girls who dream big. This fun sticker book is packed with activities that will empower your daughters, granddaughters and the special little girls in your life to ask questions, seek answers and explore the natural world. Hopscotch Girls has worked with leading scientists to create a sticker book that’s as fun as it is educational. While your little girl plays with over 150 stickers, she’ll join Aliyah, Emma and Avery as they learn about 7 scientific disciplines over 24 full color pages. The book also includes a page of bonus stickers that can be used as reward stickers or on reward charts. * Chemistry: Get into the lab and conduct experiments with colorful test tubes, bunsen burners, beakers and more. * Geology: Study rocks, minerals and landforms in a spectacular landscape. * Astronomy: Put on your astronaut suit and reach for the stars (and planets!) with this fun space scene and space stickers. * Marine Biology: Explore the ocean depths and meet fish, coral and other marine life in your scuba gear. * Botany: Grow your knowledge of the natural world with stickers like plants, flowers, and tools for preserving plant specimens. * Paleontology: Get digging and learn about paleontology with dinosaur bone, fossil and dig tool stickers. * Physiology & Medicine: Be a doctor and help a patient in need with stickers like band aids, a cast, medicine, etc. Science! STEM Sticker Adventure introduces girls to science and opens the door to future careers in the field. The book also contains ideas for activities to help your kids learn even more about science. Build and nurture their excitement and who knows where it might lead one day? If you’re looking for a perfect rainy day activity, or a way to keep curious and clever girls age 4 to 8 occupied on a long car trip or plane ride, Science! STEM Sticker Adventure is the ideal sticker book for you. Pick up a copy today. Different from Other Activity Books & STEM Toys This book is different from other sticker books for girls because it introduces girls to STEM skills in a way that other kids sticker books do not. Science! STEM Sticker Adventure uses dynamic scenes to introduce seven scientific disciplines, and includes ideas for easy science projects for kids at the end. Many other kids activity books, especially stickers for girls, focus on superficial things like dressing girl characters. In contrast, girls can use these science and girl stickers to come up with their own science games and adventures. Also, unlike other STEM toys for girls and science experiments for kids, this book is virtually mess-free. How to Use This Sticker Book to Raise Confident Girls If your child is in preschool: Sticker books with small stickers are fun for teaching your preschooler how to identify colors, numbers, and objects. Your little girl can practice her motor and cognitive skills as she peels the two of you cute stickers and matches them with the corresponding scene. You can start teaching her the basics about different scientific disciplines, and the different environments in the world around us. If your child is of school age: Your child can now play with stickers on her own and not just in this activity book. She may want to use some in her scrapbook or notebook as well! She will also love bonding with you as you explore storytelling together and create an adventure of your very own.

A jaw-dropping visual voyage of fun facts discovery exploring the deep waters of the sea and the mysterious creatures that live in it. Uncover our oceans’ secrets in this kid’s book with a remarkable array of 80 sharks as well as other fascinating sea creatures that lurk in her depths! This comprehensive encyclopedia for children covers a diverse range of ocean inhabitants in mesmerizing detail. Incredible 3D digital images, breath-taking photography, and intricate cutaways reveal more about the species of the ocean depths than ever before, complemented by informative kid-friendly profile text to turn your little ones into ocean experts! Super Shark is so much more than just an educational book about sharks. From Barrel Shrimp to Blue Sharks, Starfish to Bat Fish, and Hammerhead Sharks to deep-sea monsters, rays, and eels, this book is packed with unbelievable facts about animal behavior and anatomy. New x-ray artworks utilize cross- sections to strip layers away and show key anatomical features in great detail. It highlights the deadliest predators and the most venomous creatures and explains how and why their bodies work the way they do. The combination of spectacular photography and clear authoritative text truly makes Super Shark the ultimate visual guide to the oceans’ most peculiar creatures and their stories. What are you waiting for? Dive in and become an expert of the deep blue! Explore – Discover – Learn! Super Shark takes you deep beneath the waves to meet some of the most amazing and unusual creatures on the planet. Find out how a hammerhead searches for prey, and discover what makes the pufferfish such a prickly fellow. Learn about the fastest fish in the water and get right under the skin of one of the deadliest predators of the sea – the great white shark! These are some of the crazy creatures you’ll encounter in this kid’s reference book: – The Basking Shark, whose open mouth is so big a child could stand up in it – The Tiger Shark, who happens to be the least fussy eater – The Narwhal, affectionately known as the unicorn of the sea – The Great White Shark, who can jump 10ft (3m) out of the water This book sits on the esteemed “Children’s Book Council Children’s Choices List Selection” – an International Literary Association. This is but one of the DK Super series of books for kids! Add Super Human, Super Space, Super Bug, Super Earth , and more to your collection to learn more about the world around you.

Dive into this uniquely elegant visual exploration of the sea An informative and utterly beautiful introduction to marine life and the ocean environment, Oceanology brings the riches of the underwater world onto the printed page. Astounding photography reveals an abundance of life, from microscopic plankton to great whales, seaweed to starfish. Published in association with the Smithsonian Institution, the book explores every corner of the oceans, from coral reefs and mangrove swamps to deep ocean trenches. Along the way, and with the help of clear, simple illustrations, it explains how life has adapted to the marine environment, revealing for example how a stonefish delivers its lethal venom and how a sponge sustains itself by sifting food from passing currents. It also examines the physical forces and processes that shape the oceans, from global circulation systems and tides to undersea volcanoes and tsunamis. To most of us, the marine world is out of reach. But with the help of photography and the latest technology, Oceanology brings us up close to animals, plants, and other living things that inhabit a fantastic and almost incomprehensibly beautiful other dimension.

Named a Top Ten Science Book of Fall 2016 by Publishers Weekly Although mammals and birds are widely regarded as the smartest creatures on earth, it has lately become clear that a very distant branch of the tree of life has also sprouted higher intelligence: the cephalopods, consisting of the squid, the cuttlefish, and above all the octopus. In captivity, octopuses have been known to identify individual human keepers, raid neighboring tanks for food, turn off lightbulbs by spouting jets of water, plug drains, and make daring escapes. How is it that a creature with such gifts evolved through an evolutionary lineage so radically distant from our own? What does it mean that evolution built minds not once but at least twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter? In Other Minds , Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how subjective experience crept into being―how nature became aware of itself. As Godfrey-Smith stresses, it is a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the mind’s fitful development, Godfrey-Smith shows how unruly clumps of seaborne cells began living together and became capable of sensing, acting, and signaling. As these primitive organisms became more entangled with others, they grew more complicated. The first nervous systems evolved, probably in ancient relatives of jellyfish; later on, the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous mollusks, abandoned their shells and rose above the ocean floor, searching for prey and acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so. Taking an independent route, mammals and birds later began their own evolutionary journeys. But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess? Drawing on the latest scientific research and his own scuba-diving adventures, Godfrey-Smith probes the many mysteries that surround the lineage. How did the octopus, a solitary creature with little social life, become so smart? What is it like to have eight tentacles that are so packed with neurons that they virtually “think for themselves”? What happens when some octopuses abandon their hermit-like ways and congregate, as they do in a unique location off the coast of Australia? By tracing the question of inner life back to its roots and comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal relatives, Godfrey-Smith casts crucial new light on the octopus mind―and on our own.

Meet the world’s most fascinating sea creatures –see the lives and curiosities of colorful fish and coral reefs–this spectacular volume has more than 300 color photos and extraordinary text from a leading marine biologist and underwater photographer, and the international expert on seahorses. In this richly informative volume, brimming with new discoveries and more than three hundred colorful images of jaw-dropping fish and coral reefs, you’ll swim in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans; you’ll be dazzled in the Coral Triangle and amazed in Triton Bay. Up close you’ll meet the Cenderawasih fairy wrasse, with its florescent yellow streak; the polka-dot longnose filefish; and the multicolored seadragon. There are scarlet-colored corals, baby-blue sponges, daffodil crinoids, and all sorts of mystifying creatures that change color at the drop of a hat. The whale shark is almost larger than life and the author’s beloved pygmy seahorse, unless photographed, is almost too tiny to see. The wondrous creatures inside are charmers and tricksters and excel in the arts of seduction and deception, and you’ll have the rare chance to see and delight in their antics. You’ll also learn what they eat, how they play, and how they care for one another, live on one another, and mimic others when they’re afraid. There is also compelling insight into the naming process, which sea creatures are facing extinction, and how we can help them before it’s too late.

The most comprehensive field guide available to the insects and spiders of North America–a must-have for any enthusiast’s day pack or home library–from the go-to reference source for over 18 million nature lovers. Featuring a durable vinyl binding and over 700 full-color identification photographs organized visually by color and shape, the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Insects and Spiders is the perfect companion for any outdoor excursion. Descriptive text includes measurements, diagnostic details, and information on habitat, range, feeding habits, sounds or songs, flight period, web construction, life cycle, behaviors, folklore, and environmental impact. An illustrated key to the insect orders and detailed drawings of the parts of insects, spiders, and butterflies supplement this extensive coverage.