Overview
Mark Kurlansky, beloved author of the award-winning bestseller Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, offers a riveting new book for kids about what’s happening to fish, the oceans, and our environment, and what, armed with knowledge, kids can do about it.Written by a master storyteller, World Without Fish connects all the dots—biology, economics, evolution, politics, climate, history, culture, food, and nutrition—in a way that kids can really understand. It describes how the fish we most commonly eat, including tuna, salmon, cod, and swordfish, could disappear within 50 years, and the domino effect it would have—oceans teeming with jellyfish and turning pinkish orange from algal blooms; seabirds disappearing, then reptiles, then mammals. It describes the back-and-forth dynamic of fishermen and scientists. It covers the effects of industrialized fishing, and how bottom-dragging nets are turning the ocean floor into a desert.
The answer? Support sustainable fishing. World Without Fish tells kids exactly what they can do: Find out where those fish sticks come from. Tell your parents what’s good to buy, and what’s not. Ask the waiter if the fish on the menu is line-caught And follow simple rules: Use less plastic, and never eat endangered fish like bluefin tuna.
Interwoven with the book is a full-color graphic novel. Each beautifully illustrated chapter opener links to form a larger fictional story that complements the text. Hand in hand, they create a Silent Spring for a new generation.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Kurlansky (The Cod's Tale) offers an urgent account of the problems that threaten the world's oceans and could result in the commercial extinction of key species of fish in the next 50 years. It's an alarming statement, underscored by the book's design: on most pages, key sentences (and sometimes not-so-key ones) appear in an enormous, all-caps font, the typographical equivalent of a fire alarm ("THIS IS CALLED A SUSTAINABLE FISHERY. THIS IS THE REAL ANSWER TO OVERFISHING"). Kurlansky opens by outlining the problem—overfishing is resulting in "a massive shifting in the natural order of the planet"—before discussing the cultural, political, and industrial factors that have led to current conditions. Sidebars profile various fish as well as key historical moments, and the narrative is further broken up by comic book panels that tell the earnest story of Kram, a fictional scientist, and his daughter, Ailat, who witness the very destruction Kurlansky describes, as species vanish and the oceans turn slimy and orange with the resurgence of algae and krill. It's a dire vision, and Kurlansky's few suggestions (support sustainable fishing, become an activist) may not be much comfort. Ages 10–up. (Apr.)Children's Literature -
Billed as a "Silent Spring for the next generation," World Without Fish provides a straightforward primer about the nature of evolution, the direct role humans have in affecting evolution, and the way our overfishing, polluting, and global warming practices are impacting the oceans, the weather, and ultimately humanity's continued existence. Readers will learn how as the planet's temperature, food sources, and weather patterns changes, certain species (such as the jellyfish) will begin to flourish even as other animals (like the fish that feed on jellyfish) die out. Yet while these evolutionary processes normally take thousands or even millions of years to occur, Kurlansky reveals how human overfishing is radically speeding up this process by depleting the oceans of their fish, which in turn kills off insects, birds, reptiles, and mammals as they lose their food sources. Other chapters examine overfishing in more detail, by exploring how new inventions, such as beam trawlers (that haul huge nets for trapping more fish) and gas and steam engines allow fishermen to expand their fishing grounds and catch fish too quickly for the ocean to replenish the populations. In between the chapters, Kurlansky and Stockton offer a multi-part comic strip that follows a father and daughter as they gradually see their beloved ocean become depleted of the usual sea life, resulting in massive and often unpleasant changes to the sea and land. And while many of the facts the authors present forecast a bleak potential future, Kurlansky and Stockton also offer hope by encouraging young readers to help save fish populations by buying only fish caught in sustainable fisheries, not eating endangered fish, or even organizing picket lines around stores or restaurants that sell endangered fish species. While aimed at middle readers and young adults, the book is an excellent source of information for any teacher, parent, librarian, or adult interested in learning more about the role oceans and sea life play in the survival of multiple species, and how human activities threaten this survival. A good book that should be introduced to children at an early age. Reviewer: Michael Jung, PhDKirkus Reviews
The author ofCod (1997) successfully provides readers with a frightening look at the looming destruction of the oceans. Brief sections in graphic-novel format follow a young girl, Ailat, and her father over a couple of decades as the condition of the ocean grows increasingly dire, eventually an orange, slimy mess mostly occupied by jellyfish and leatherback turtles. At the end, Ailat's young daughter doesn't even know what the word fish means. This is juxtaposed against nonfiction chapters with topics including types of fishing equipment and the damage each causes, a history of the destruction of the cod and its consequences, the international politics of the fishing industry and the effects of pollution and global warming. The final chapter lists of some actions readers could take to attempt to reverse the damage: not eating certain types of fish, joining environmental groups, writing to government officials, picketing seafood stores that sell endangered fish, etc. Whenever an important point is to be made, font size increases dramatically, sometimes so that a single sentence fills a page—attention-getting but distractingly so. While it abounds with information, sadly, no sources are cited, undermining reliability. Additionally, there are no index and no recommended bibliography for further research, diminishing this effort's value as a resource. Depressing and scary yet grimly entertaining. (Nonfiction/graphic-novel hybrid. 10 & up)
Pamela Paul
Smartly packaged for budding environmentalists and nascent vegans, World Without Fish combines zoology, oceanography, politics, food and global warming into a readable narrative.—The New York Times