How to Measure the Ocean

How to Measure the Ocean by Inda Ahmad Zahri (Allen & Unwin) HB RRP $24.99 ISBN 9781761180361

Reviewed by Nikki M Heath

How would one measure the ocean? It’s a difficult question for most adults, let alone children. Yet it’s a question tackled from almost every perspective in this rich non-fiction picture book.

There isn’t a narrative as such to this book, but the illustrations follow three children at the seaside as they grapple with the ocean’s many dimensions. The text explores all the different ways it is possible to consider the titular question: through the mathematics of volume, length, width, and depth, as well as geography, shape, inhabitants, time, and space.

The book cleverly introduces the concept of a formula and invites children to treat the book as a formula, swapping in concepts such as courage or love for ‘the ocean’ throughout the text. It also includes origami instructions for a paper boat and suggests more achievable measuring tasks for readers to tackle.

The illustrations are fully saturated and immersive, some full of detail, others focusing on character and connection. Together with the text, readers are encouraged to open their minds to the physical and philosophical questions that the ocean - and our attempts to measure it - poses.

This book is a wonderful cross-curricular, interactive classroom resource for kindergarten through middle primary, that just might challenge the adults as much as the children.

How to Measure the Ocean

How to Measure the Ocean by Inda Ahmad Zahri (Allen & Unwin) HB RRP $24.99 ISBN 9781761180361

Reviewed by Kylie Buckley

How can you measure the ocean when it is everchanging and encapsulates so many splendid things? Each aspect you focus on is just as important as any other. It is not easy, but it does not mean you should not try! This book gives a young audience many things to think about in this seemingly impossible task.

A note to the reader at the back of the book highlights the importance of a formula – ‘a set of rules you can use to arrive at the right answer’. This picture book can be used as a useful discussion starter in a primary school mathematics or science class.

Additionally, this multilayered book can be used in the classroom to focus on social-emotional learning. The author states that this book is also ‘one big formula’ to help the reader ‘think about things that are difficult to measure such as courage, creativity, kindness, friendship [and] love.’

How to Measure the Ocean includes engaging full-colour digitally created illustrations that add to the text. A big highlight is a double-page spread (portrait layout) featuring a myriad of wonderful marine life found in the depths of the ocean.

This thought-provoking picture book is so much more than a story about measuring the beauty, vastness, and wonders of the ocean. It is a multifaceted book that encourages curiosity and critical thinking. How to Measure the Ocean includes themes of change, differing perspectives, challenges, and growth mindset. It is highly recommended for the primary classroom and school library.

For teaching resources to complement this book, you may like to explore www.allenandunwin.com/learn. To learn more about this highly talented author, illustrator, surgical doctor, and scuba diver visit www.indabinda.com

Night Lights

Night Lights written by Inda Ahmad Zahri and illustrated by Lesley McGee (Little Pink Dog Books) RRP $24.99 ISBN 9780648652847

Reviewed by Nean McKenzie

Using the idea of different kinds of light, this story describes a child growing up at their grandparents’ house in the Malaysian countryside.  Beginning with a colourful full-page illustration of children playing in the jungle with monkeys and a monitor lizard, the reader is shown a very different life to contemporary Australia. The focus is the night-time and the different kinds of light they have including generator electricity, lanterns, torches and then more natural kinds such as the moon, stars, fireflies and glow worms. It’s also an exploration of the love of a close family and the culture and stories the adults Tok-Mak and Tok-Bah share with their grandchildren.

Lesley MGee’s illustrations are evocative, and you can almost feel the humidity and hear the ‘tch-tch-tch’ sound of geckos, the chirp of crickets. Also beautiful is the prose, for example describing the fireflies: ‘Flecks of light floated along the long grass like raindrops falling upwards.’  The grandmother Tok Mak slicing ginger roots for tomorrow’s meals and her orchid scented perfume further stimulates the imaginative senses. It’s lovely to be immersed in a story and taken to another place, especially in times when that’s not so easy in real life.

This is author Inda Ahmad Zahri’s second book published this year – her debut picture book Salih came out in March. Night Lights is suitable for children aged 4-10 years.