Member Reviews
Another welcome mess. Well, imagine the 2172 species of worm that exist in the Mediterranean alone and try to see something other than a mess. Then again, what I really meant was, this visual mess is just in keeping with the other books in the series, that print in three distinct, overlapping shades, so the tri-coloured lens provided lets the young explorer discern three different things on every pictorial page. The format is the same – a mixed spread, of data and introduction, with a visual of some of the critters involved, the full-on diorama on the middle spread, and then the third pair of pages, which reverts to black and white for the informative details. Those details cover the ways of life of such things as omnivorous sharks, in the most succinct of detail, so we learn just a touch about the world's superlatives, and carry on. This is primarily a visual series of books, after all. And it's a very good one, leaving this with four and a half stars more or less.
I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. These illumino books are really great and fun for both kids and adults. Love great books for kids referencing animals.
If you are looking for a great book to give this Holiday season, look no further, the sensational kid’s book: Illuminoceans by Barbara Taylor is the perfect gift. Want to nurture a child’s curiosity? Dive deep into all the amazing things to explore, with your magic three-color lens included in this book.
Sea Creatures & Oceans
The eye-popping art in Illuminoceans will have you and your child find curiosities every time you pop open this book.
Your red lens will uncover the most unusual and important creatures from each habitat, and other ocean creatures.
Use your blue lens to reveal other phenomena that make up so much of the underwater landscape, from plankton, to coral, and the strange relics and wrecks that make up part of our ocean world, reminding us of the human impact that we have had on the sea for thousands of years.
The green lens sets the scene, bringing to light the habitat in which these creatures and plants dwell.
The Sensational Kid’s Book: Illuminoceans
Another phenomenal way to use this book is as a reference book. In the book you will find fishes, other ocean creatures, with a journey through the oceans and seas. This book is not only colorful, it’s filled with facts. Facts that can lead to further exploration and researching information on the animals your children are curious about.
A sensational kid’s book: Illuminoceans even covers prehistoric oceans. There is something fascinating you will discover on this ocean adventure. Yo will also learn and understand how people threaten their survival, educating children on climate change, pollution, and overfishing among other reasons.
This is one of my favourite series of books. Illuminoceans is another winner. The children in class always are li ing up to read this book. They love the glasses and seeing all the images. I would use it for book talk discussions.
This book is incredibly interactive. Part color coded seek and find + part ocean learning, it is a for sure hit with kids to learn more about ocean animals. I liked the layout and how it was divided by the different oceans. So often books on ocean animals lump all the oceans together. This was a fun breakdown in a way I hadn't seen before. I also thought it was really cool and inventive to have a scan code at the back to turn any device into a magic three color lens. The facts shared about each ocean were interesting as were the animal facts.
I do wish that would have been mentioned on the "How to Use this Book" page in even just a small footnote so that someone would see it before they read the book. I am not sure how the lens are provided but I could definitely see them going missing quickly in say a library edition and a new reader might miss that at the end.
Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for giving me this eArc to review.
The small bits of information about each fish/creature are nice and the chapter pages are gorgeous. The art is really nice but I wish the illustrations were in colour so they could be identified more if you saw them in an aquarium or the wild.
What a treat this book is. I like the idea that you can look through the different coloured lenses on the pages and see plants or fish etc. This will be lots of fun for children and adults alike. Then following each section about different seas and oceans, there is further information to read about the fish, creatures etc so you can learn more. Absolutely brilliant and really accessible for all- if you just want to look at the fish and creatures and find out their names you can but you can delve deeper if you choose. Can't wait to buy it and I know it will be very popular in class
VERY COOL IDEA! 🐠 Having not just one but all three colours magically changing the scene into something different - love it! I do wish it had a few pages dedicated to just a sole animal on each page and its habitat, the pages are a little busy.. but I'm sure kids will have a lot of fun with this one.. BIG KIDS TOO! 🪸 🐟
Dive into the ocean and get to know some of the organisms that live in the myriad ocean s book is quite novel in its use of color. Use red, blue, and green filters to see fishes, other organisms, and their habitats one at a time. A QR code is included to turn your internet able smart device into a rbg filter. Fun for young and old alike. A great addition to and personal, classroom, or school library. A great resource for children who need to interact with smaller chunks of rich text. Beautifully crafted and marvelously executed idea for a children’s nonfiction book.
It really is difficult to stand out as a non-fiction book now. This one does stand out but mainly due to the illustration style rather than the information inside.
It is a nice book to have if you do not already have one on the same topic.
This book is so cool! The world's oceans are each given an introduction paragraph and a stats section. This text is surrounded and followed by 2 pages of incredible illustration in overlapping yellow, blue, and red ink. Using the red lens, you see fishes native to the ocean, the green lens highlights the habitat, and the blue shows other ocean creatures. Following the introduction, there is a two page spread for each ocean giving information on one page about the fishes and the other page about the other ocean creatures. These pages are black and white, providing a nice visual rest while still having gorgeous detailed illustrations of each animal. I read an online copy, so when I read the book through the first time, I thought even without the even without the lenses, the illustrations are gorgeous and you still get a sense of how much life is out there. Then at the very end there was a QR code with a link that turned used my phone camera as the colored lens! I was reading on a tablet, so I read the book a second time looking at the the colored images through my phone camera display and it was so fun to see each section pop depending on the lens I used. The QR code is on the copyright page, which on the digital ARC is put as the last page, but will be up front in the printed edition, so other readers won't share this same confusion. I can't wait to look at this book again in a physical copy!
I love the multiple resources and multiple uses for the story. The story itself is easy to follow and is accessible to its audience.
This book is gorgeous and informative. Because I had the electronic version, I was not able to use the different "lenses" to help differentiate habitats, but I can see this book being very popular with students