A Swim Through the Sea Board book – Illustrated, March 1, 2006

My son was getting bored with the usual toddler alphabet books and he loves ocean things especially coral reefs... so he picked this as his new alphabet book. We like A Swim Through the Sea Kristin Joy Pratt simply because you can choose to read just the larger words and create a preschool option OR read all the details for an older child. There is a sense of fun in the alliterative phrases that even young kids appreciate. The choices for each letter were more straight forward like C is clown fish (which is better than the book Underwater Alphabet which uses off-the-wall creatures). By using straight forward letter examples, kids actually can use this book to reinforce alphabet learning. I do think using "Blue Crab" for B can be a bit confusing (because kids think crab is for letter c) so I would have chosen a beluga instead. It was also unfortunate that a very hard to pronounce scientific word for was chosen for "x." I loved how many other creatures of the same letter were drawn and listed in the borders on each page (good luck trying to read all those x-names). Overall, we loved the book.

I'm really impressed with this book. I bought it to read to my 2 year old because we are going to the beach and learning about sea creatures right now. She knows her ABC's and I thought an ABC book would be right up her ally. After trying to read it to her, and watching her loose interest, I think she might be a tad young for this book still (thus why I took away one star). However, as a former educator, I am really impressed with this book. There are multiple ways you can read it, and various depths you can dive in to it with :) For instance, there is a short rhyming story line that you can follow for young readers that illustrates the concept of alliteration beautifully. As the child grows older, it almost because a reference book with more in depth information written extra on each page. Each page also has a border with other sea animals that start with that letter, which would be a fun game to try and guess all the animals. The illustrations are beautiful, though I think more geared toward an older crowd. My toddler wasn't interested in the art of it, and she usually loves looking at pictures in books. Overall though, I am excited for her to grow into this book, and grow with it over the years.

My four year old and I absolutely love this book! We've been doing a unit on Ocean and this book has been a lovely part of our curriculum. We love that it is an alphabet book, but it is so much more detailed and informative than a typical alphabet book. I would highly recommend this book for fans of ocean animals!

"A Swim Through the Sea" is a well-written book about various forms of marine life (A-Z), and the illustrations are lovely. One thing that I really love about this book are the many "layers" to each page/letter of the alphabet. First, there is a letter. Then, there is a sentence (using alliterative qualities to help drive the sound of that particular letter home) naming each particular creature. There is a longer description about the creature, in smaller print, beneath that sentence. Finally, all around the border of the page, there are small illustrations and names of other sea creatures that begin with the same letter. You can make this book as long or short of a read as you'd like, and tailor it to the age of the child you are reading it to.

I cannot praise this book enough. It is listed as additional reading material in my daughter's first grade homeschool curriculum, so I decided borrowed a copy from my library. I was blown away by the content and illustrations. I can't believe it was written and illustrated by a teenager. After reading it with my daughter, I immediately purchased a used library copy here on Amazon. I highly recommend it as an ABC picture book for young children and an educational text for older children.

I bought this book for my 2 year old who loves fish and marine animals. Since we received it, we had been reading it every night and she still asked for 'Seamore the seahorse" . The illustration is amazing,aritstic and not cartoonish, with the seahorse hidden cleverly on each page. The words are simple and clear, and my daughter loves to repeat the name of each creature as she turns the page. I know that we will enjoy this book for a very long time.

Good idea but I didn’t like the illustrations, they were too dark for a little kid to distinguish.

1.Books with universal themes for children should not use provincial measurements. Most of the world uses metric now. If not written solely in metric, then both metric and imperial measurements should be used. It would be simple enough to do, you just have to think about it.2.The text (Organisms in intertidal zones surviving 50% dessication) is beyond the comprehension of a child learning the alphabet- so why it was set out as an alphabet book?Why didn't the editors of this book re-orient it for either older children with the text intact, or younger children with a simpler text. In either case universal measurements would be necessary.I will use the book for the pictures only.

Excellent service & amazing product. Ordered book for Christmas - neice absolutely loves reading this book. Has been read many times!

dis book is full of dark colors,difficult to b understood by a toddler..