saveourseasSubtitled Continuing the mission of the adventurer Sir Peter Blake, this book accompanies Maria Gill’s fictional skipper L.B. Tross  ( a red-sock-and-skipper’s-hat-wearing albatross (get it?)) around New Zealand’s coast in a figure eight, starting at Auckland, travelling north to Spirit’s Bay, south to Nelson, around the sounds and down the East coast of the South Island to Rakiura/Stewart Island, then up the West Coast, through Cook Strait and up the North Island’s East coast to the starting point. Each section of the journey has an extract from Skipper Tross’s log, facts about the marine wildlife of the area and activities like word-finds, puzzles, things to make and do and things the reader can do to help the plight of endangered sea creatures. Great illustrations by Vivienne Lingard. A full page at the back of how to take action, then a glossary and index conclude an interesting book.  There’s also a link on this website  home page to Maria’s reviews of New Zealand children’s books. And Maria has another site: www.mariagill.co.nz with downloadable teaching resources for this book and her other recent book on Rangitoto; and http://eco-rangersnz.blogspot.com/  a good news site about what kids are doing to help the environment, a nice antidote to the doom-and-gloom messages.