Review: 'Blue Planet: Life in Our Oceans and Rivers' on the BooksForTopics Blog

Book Title: Blue Planet – Life in Our Oceans and Rivers (available here)

Author: Moira Butterfield

Illustrator: Jonathan Woodward

Publisher: Little Tiger Press

Publication Date: October 2020

Most Suitable For: Years 1-3

Reviewed By: Hayley Warner

Blue Planet – Life in Our Oceans and Rivers is a beautifully illustrated non-fiction text that is a real pleasure to read.

I love the front cover; it makes you want to pick up the book and explore inside. This book celebrates the importance of water on our planet and introduces children to a selection of animals that can be found in our seas, rivers and lakes. With a contents and index page, this non-fiction book is easy for children to navigate independently. Furthermore, the book shares interesting facts about the water cycle as well as explains how water comes out of a tap. There is even reference to the view of our blue planet from space.

The illustrations in this book are simply beautiful. They are big, colourful and detailed. Some page illustrations are designed to represent the bottom of a lake, another as postcards. This is great touch, as it means that no two pages as the same and each turning of the page resets the reader’s interest. The illustrations would also really help to navigate the reader through the text and would certainly support younger readers to understand new or trickier vocabulary. The text on each page is displayed in several different ways including short page introductions, text boxes and labels.

Blue Planet could certainly be used to support geography and science learning objectives in Key Stage One. It could also be used as a whole class read as well as give a good example of a model text for report writing. This would make a wonderful addition to any school library.

———————