BOOK 



MARKET 



• MANATEES: NATURAL 

 HISTORY & CONSERVATION, 



by James Powell. 2002. Voyageur Press, Inc., 

 Stillwater, MN 55082. 72 pages. Paperback, 

 $16.95. ISBN 0-89658-583-2. 



Anyone harboring a soft spot for marine 

 animals will enjoy Manatees. Adults and 

 children alike will pause at each photograph, 

 displaying the primitive beauty of the 

 manatee in a variety of habitats and poses. 

 Powell opens with recollections of his earliest 

 interest in manatees: "My father had no need 

 to tell me to be quiet, I'm not sure I was 

 breathing. It was a 'sea cow,' he told me in his 

 southern drawl, or a 'manatee.' " 



The manatee's benign nature is 

 magnified by the fact that "these placid 

 creatures that suffer so at the hands of man 

 and his machines, approach and actively 

 solicit human contact: not to be fed or 

 rewarded in any other way but to be touched." 



Powell educates as he details the origins 

 and biology of the manatee, beginning with 

 the obvious question: What exactly is a 

 manatee? While they bear a facial 

 resemblance to walruses and are often called 

 sea cows, they actually "belong to an 

 interesting group of mammals referred to as 

 subungulates and may be distantly related to 

 ungulates or hooved mammals such as cattle, 

 horses, and deer," writes Powell. 



Powell successfully brings the 

 biological, conservation and emotional 

 aspects of the manatee existence full circle. 



Parents should hoist children into their 

 laps as they read the chapter, "A Year in the 

 Life of a Florida Manatee." 



In this fictional tale inspired by his 30 

 years of experience in manatee observation, 

 Powell traces the life of a Florida manatee 

 called Tia. Here we are introduced to a 

 strange and unusual environment full of "its 

 own peculiar complement of sounds from 

 snapping shrimp, grunts and the noise of 

 lapping waves over the oyster bars." 



Through Tia, we witness the miracle of 

 her calf's birth: "He makes a couple of quick 

 strokes with his tail and breaks free from his 



umbilicus and birth sac, then shoots for the 

 surface while his mother helps by nudging 

 him upward with her muzzle." 



The fate of Tia and her calf brings to 

 light the urgency for the protection of the 

 manatee as mortality increases due to 

 collisions with watercraft, ingestion of trash, 

 hunting and habitat change. 



• TIDELAND TREASURE, 



by Todd Ballantine. 1991. University of South 

 Cawlina Press, Columbia, SC 29208. 218 

 pages. Paperback, $14.35. ISBN 0-87249- 

 795-x. 



The lack of long, complicated scientific 

 names takes nothing away from this valuable 

 resource packed with coastal information, 

 focusing specifically on Hilton Head Island 

 and the southeastern coast. Ballantine 

 provides poetic, and often comical, 

 descriptions of anything anyone would ever 

 want to know about visiting the beach. 



In Tideland Treasure, tides become 

 "the heartbeat of nature," the ocean 

 a "pea green porridge," 

 a loggerhead turtle a 

 "wandering giant," and 

 a tick a "bloodthirsty 

 vampire of the bush." 



Ballantine depicts 

 the components of the sea, 

 beach, salt marsh, plants, 

 animals and coastal 

 conservation through a unique 

 blend of detailed drawings, 

 diagrams and seemingly 

 handwritten notes. Therefore, 

 Tideland Treasure reads like a 

 personal nature journal. 



Children will find this book 

 visually pleasing and readable with its 

 comic-bookish illustrations and text. 

 Adults will cherish it for the same reason. 



The content is also intriguing. Did 

 you ever wonder, "Why marsh mud 

 smells bad?" "The fine-packed sediments 

 are oxygen-poor. Here native 'anaerobic' 

 bacteria decays bottom matter and releases 



hydrogen sulfide (H,S) — poisonous gas 

 smelling of rotten eggs," writes Ballantine. 



Readers also learn how to make sand 

 dollar jewelry — an art passed down from 

 native Escamacu Indians. 



Tideland Treasure serves as a reference 

 that all beach lovers should keep on hand. 

 There's always something new to discover at 

 the beach. 



• SEA TURTLES OF THE 

 WORLD, by Doug Perrine. 2003. Voyageur 

 Press, Inc., Stillwater, MN 55082. 144 pages. 

 Hardback, $29.95. ISBN 0-89658-555-7. 



"Without a change in the human 

 population trend, turtles and many other wild 

 animals face a very bleak future. ...It is my 

 fervent hope that every reader of this book 

 will have no more than four grandchildren, 

 every one of whom will have the 

 opportunity to see a great 

 armada of 



24 HOLIDAY 2003 



