Explore the Eelgrass Meadow with Sam and Crystal

The adventures of young Sam and Crystal continue in this third book centered around their visits to Aunt Kate and Uncle Charlie's west coast home. Having become familiar with the tide zones in the previous two books, Explore the Wild Coast and Explore the Rocky Shore, this time they are introduced to the eelgrass meadow, an ecosystem that is home to countless marine creatures and, in particular, the nursery for herring, a major food source for so many of them.

On the way to their destination, Sam and Crystal watch purse seiners at work and learn of the fishing industry that relies on the small silvery herring. It isn't only a human-based industry, though. Marine birds, fish, and large marine mammals, including whales, also fish the ocean for herring. And at the basis of it all, everything relies on the eelgrass meadows for survival. The kids hear about the role of eelgrass in the lives of salmon and great blue herons, bears, Brant geese and wolves. Indigenous people have harvested herring eggs as part of their food and cultural lifestyle for centuries. Below the surface of the water, another dimension is revealed: the youngsters are magically taken on a tour by the legendary Grandfather Staghorn Sculpin (a cousin of the Tidepool Sculpin who performed a similar duty in a previous book). They meet and learn about a myriad of creatures inhabiting the eelgrass community. Twenty-eight of them are pictured and identified on a colourful double-page spread. The adventure winds up with a seafood feast, including eelgrass greens, driving home the point that "without eelgrass there would be fewer crabs and clams, and even fewer fish to eat".

While there is extensive and well-researched factual detail which would make this book (and the series) useful for reference, it has neither Table of Contents nor Index since it takes a fictional approach. A number of short chapters each deal with a different topic. There is, however, a list of “Organisms of the Eelgrass Meadow and Pacific Northwest Coast” at the back. The explanations by Aunt Kate and Grandfather Staghorn Sculpin tend to be detailed and require careful reading, with definitions of new terms given in context. They are augmented by the generous use of illustrations around the edges of most pages. For instance, the information about Moon Snails—how they move, extract their prey from shells and lay eggs in sand collars—is clearly shown with excellent, neatly-labelled drawings. The full-color pages are dramatic and animated (humpback whales bubble feeding, sea lions hunting around purse seine nets, the kids using rakes to catch crabs) to give an added layer of excitement to the investigation of this fascinating environment and its inhabitants.

As in the previous books, the overall theme in Explore the Eelgrass Meadow with Sam and Crystal concerns the need to respect, care for and live in harmony with this diverse ecosystem. The reader is reminded that eelgrass meadows are increasingly susceptible to coastal development and pollution. This is both an attractive and important series that should appeal to a wide readership.