The Brilliant Deep: Rebuilding the World's Coral Reefs by Kate Messner

What an incredible book!  The story, the illustrations, and the information about coral reefs and re-building are so engaging.  As soon as I began reading, I determined that this book is perfect for an IRA (Interactive Read Aloud).  The description of the coral spawning tiny corals "until the water swirls like a snow globe" is enthralling, painting a familiar picture for the reader.  For students who are unfamiliar with a snow globe, of course, the teacher could bring a snow globe to class to illustrate what that particular description means.

This interesting story is based on the true story of Ken Nedimyer's lifelong love for, conservation, and restoration of coral reefs. As a child living in Florida, Ken's favorite place to be is diving in a coral reef. When he notices that the sea urchins are dying and the reef is dying, he develops a way to help generate re-growth of the reef.

The rich vocabulary and vibrant illustrations fuse to create a captivating and persuasive informational text.  This story could be a catapult for a unit on coral reefs.  It imparts just enough facts about reefs to peak student interest and to provide a springboard for further research.  The text treats the corals/reefs as characters in the story and allows the reader to connect and actually feel sympathetic towards them, which is a brilliant strategy to cultivate text-to-self connections. Another approach might be to use this book to launch a unit on environmental conservation in which students would research conservation topics and the people who pioneered the work.

It starts with one.  One tiny coral.  One person.