The Sea Below My Toes (Look Closer)

What a beautiful book. I gave it as a gift to my children and they are over the moon about it. They love looking at the pictures and reading all about the sea creatures. My six year old has fallen asleep with it in his lap countless times. He loves the folding out pages and it adds a nice, magical touch to an already magical book. Would make a great gift for any kid.

This is a lovely book with lovely illustrations about the ocean. It is educational—explains the different zones in the oceans, the animals that live there, etc. When I say it is cumbersome, I am referring to the fold out style. Basically the whole book folds out like centerfold so you can see all the ocean zones (though it is front and back so that also makes it awkward to handle as well.) It can be a little hard to fold up and the long stretched out pages are easy for younger kids to rip.But the format is cool. It’s different than other books and lets kids visualize the layers of the ocean. The illustrations are absolutely stunning and really hold my kid’s attention. It’s a good book. Great to teach kids about the ocean.

This book has great pictures and lots of information but the page folds out to be a long strip. I love the idea but it makes it a little impractical and I worry that it is going to get ripped. I love the content and the look just would like some regular pages.

This book has given my 5 year old a love for ocean creatures and a knowledge about the different zones. He loves to read about the Kaups Arrowtooth eel and gulper eel. It is big and not easy to just lay down and read together. It doesn't have pages but one thick long page that folds in and out forever and is double sided. In bed I have him pick one page to read to save my arms. I recommend. Great gift.

This is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous, and they cover every single page from edge to edge. The text is interesting for kids and adults, and it is full of cool facts about life in the ocean. The book is arranged into zones (twilight zone, midnight zone) as if the reader were diving deeper and deeper through the ocean depths and then back up again.The only concern is the format. Unlike a traditional book, the pages are all connected in an accordion-style fold, making it possible to pull the entire thing out and look at it as one giant picture. That's cool, but it's unwieldy and only possible in a huge space. Even looking at the book page by page, it takes up a lot of space- 20 inches (it is read in landscape orientation). That means it doesn't fit well in something like a car seat or a small school desk, and some kids, especially those with some disabilities, will find it difficult to hold it and turn the pages.But, if you can find the space and can help out little ones who need it, it is well worth it for this amazing adventure!

This is the fourth book in QEB’s Look Closer series, a series of concertina books meant to introduce young children to some of the mysteries of the natural world in which they live. If the other three books are as informative and attractive as this one, they’re all worth getting (The Street Beneath My Feet, The Skies Above My Eyes, The World Around Me). The pages fold open in four page rectangles. The content of each quadrangle is continuous: you read from the top of the first page through the end of the fourth, and it’s all connected. The illustrations, which look like they were originally painted in watercolors are arresting and attractive, and the artist hasn’t citified the animals on display. As you read, you descend from the surface of the ocean to 660 feet. This is the Sunlight Zone, where sample light allows photosynthesis for plants like kelp on or just below the surface and there is no difficulty navigating or keeping an eye out for danger. Next is the Twilight Zone, roughly 3,300 feet below the surface. The ocean gets darker, the pressure greater, and life is a harder thing. Still, plankton thrive here and you may see glass octopuses, siphonophores (gelatinous creatures that capture their prey in a curtain of stinging tentacles. “Thin as a broomstick, the largest grow longer than a blue whale,” writes the author), lanternfish, whales and vampire squid, hatchet fish and elephant seals. The Midnight Zone starts half a mile down. Here there is no light except what animals generate themselves. The best known creature from this depth is probably the angler fish which sports a phosphorescent light on a tentacle dangling ahead of its multi-toothed mouth. It uses the light to lure other creatures into its maw. The Abyssal Zone starts at around 13,000 feet below the surface. Very few fish live this far down because of the freezing temperatures and the immense pressure of the water weighing down on them. Still, the Kaup’s arrowtooth eel can live up to 15,500 feet below sea level and it grows up to five feet in length. At the far bottom? At is deepest point, the Mariana Trench in the Indian Ocean is 36,037 feet below the surface. Human intruders appear in each concertina fold, from an offshore rig a few hundred feet below the surface to a submarine a thousand feet down to deep deep deep sea exploratory robots which transmit data back to the surface for scientific exploration. This a very interesting book, it hits right at its stated age group, and it is very attractively presented.

Hard covers measuring about 10" by 13" contains a long chart printed on both sides of heavy cardstock instead of actual book pages.The printing is well done with lots of color and small bits of information scattered amongst the pictures of the sea creatures. Each of the 10 sections of the chart measures about 9 1/2" long so the total length of the chart is about 95"! Printed on both sides makes the "book" about 190" long so be sure to clear floor space before opening it.The recommended age range for the book is 5-7 years old. I can see a 5 year old enjoying the chart with an adult's assistance and a careful 7 year old being able to handle it by themselves.