A Whale's World by Ian McAllister is a wonderful nature book with gorgeous photographs taken by the author. This is another book in the series "My Great Bear Rainforest". This book is about a pod of orca's swimming along looking for food. As they travel south, we are introduced to plants and animals they see along the way. We find out how this ecosystem supports various life. There are pictures of bears, seals, sea lions, shellfish, and of course orcas along with the beautiful landscape of the British Columbian Rain Forest. There are several books in this series and they could all be read together. You would see the same eco-system from the perspective of the various animals. This series is also great, interesting non-fiction for younger readers. Great learning book and a great visual delight. I would recommend this book for public, school and classroom libraries. The publishers provided me with a copy of this book via Netgalley.
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Beautiful color photographs of the forest, sea and its animal inhabitants.

The Great Bear Sea encompasses the waters along the north coast of British Columbia, Canada, and includes Hecate Strait, Queen Charlotte Sound, and Dixon Entrance. Nicholas Read and Ian McAllister focus on the animals seen in this region of the Pacific in a children’s nonfiction book notable for its stunningly beautiful photographs. Read and McAllister help young readers see the dense temperate rainforest from a diving and spy-hopping orca’s perspective. The orca is on the lookout for seals or sea lions that her pod can share, but her periscoping thrust upwards also affords her a view of a grizzly on the shore who feeds on seafood: crabs, mussels, and barnacles. The orca’s world includes other shore and marine animals: wolves who dig in the sand for clams, massive fin whales, each the size of a bus, who consume krill and plankton, and hundreds of varieties of fish. The writers also mention many species of birds. At times, the text begins to read like a list, but then Read zooms in to provide a couple of interesting facts about a less-known creature, such as the gigantic Pacific octopus (which is known to be very intelligent and actually uses tools) and the twenty-four-legged sunflower sea star, large as an umbrella. The orca’s quest for food is not a success, so even though this is a world in which “one fish always eats another”, the book does not venture into “nature red in tooth and claw” territory. The orca passes by; the hiding harbour seal can, in the end, come out to enjoy the day.

This lovely work, part of the My Great Bear Rainforest series, is sure to please kids aged 7 to 10 who love to read about the natural world.

Thanks to Orca Book Publishers and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy. ( )

I really like how the publisher is laying this book series out. Yes it is about whales, but it emcompasses their entire world. Who do they see on the shore. What are some interesting bits about the grizzly and the black bear. They have amazing pictures, and often info bits not normally found in this level of a book. Periscoping was something I had seen, but never heard about until reading this kids book. These are really well done and great for any library collection. ( )