The Fantastic Undersea Life Of Jacques Cousteau (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
The pictures on this book are colorful and pretty, and it gives a good introduction to Jacques Cousteau. I wish I'd known more about Cousteau growing up, since I really liked undersea stuff despite growing up in the Midwest, and I would've been totally fascinated by Cousteau and his friend Emile Gagnan's engineering exploits, which apparently included the aqua lung, underwater photography and submersibles! Yay for informative children's books :-) SummaryJacques Cousteau was sick growing up. As a child and through his whole life he always had a facination with two things, water, and inventing. The doctor told Jacques that swimming would help to build up his muscles and help him grown stronger and healthier. As he was growing up and getting better, he was in a terrible car accident that messed up his arms and he was told he would have to wear braces on them for the rest of his life. Again Jacques took to the water and eventually made him arms better by using them and building up his muscles again. He received goggles from a friend and that changed his life forever. now he was able to see underwater and wished that he could stay underwater for longer periods of time. At this point there was no invention where divers could freely move around and stay under for a while. He then invented the aqua lung. This was the first machine that let divers stay underwater and breathe. He wanted to explore even more and share it with people, so he then invented the airtight camera and placed lights underwater so he could see and take pictures. He also invented the first underwater film and shared it with the world. People loved seeing the undersea life just as much as Jacques so he wanted to make his equipment even better and make more and more movies. Jacques led a very interesting and fascinating life inventing many inventions like the diving saucer or the sea flea. he even wanted to colonize people underwater with labs, however people needed sunlight to live so that did not work. Throughout his life he had his own TV series, he wrote 50 books, 2 encyclopedias, and dozens of documentary films. After he realized how bad the water conditions were getting and dealing with pollution, he founded the Cousteau Society to help people learn and protect the sea. ReflectionI liked this book because it explains a lot of cool interesting facts about Jacques Cousteau. it is also inspiring to know that he had problems growing up and was weak but he took to the one thing he loved and he didn’t let his problems get the best of him. He made himself stronger and set out to do what he loved doing most and to some kids that can send them a great lesson. one thing i enjoyed most about this book was the pictures. The artwork done was very unique and i have never seen anything like it before. i liked that he started his own society to clean up the water and help the animals live better lives. His foundation also helps to teach people about the sea life and what they can do to help preserve it. Classroom ConnectionI think one thing that would be cool for the class is after reading this book I would like to show one of the documentaries that he made so that some of the children could learn about this stuff as well. This can open into a lesson on animal life in the sea. Also for a science project, I would do what’s called an ocean in a water bottle. I did this with a 5th grade class. You take a regular water bottle and you put in sand and seashells. Then you add water with blue dye in it so it has a blue tint and fill it about half way. After that you add some glitter to show little specs in the water and then fill the rest of the bottle up with baby oil and it end up looking like a mini ocean inside of a water bottle. I was also talking with Jamaica and she mentioned it would be cool to have the class do a cleanup project if we lived near the ocean or a beach. I think that was a great idea as well to do with a class so that they can learn about keeping the environment cleanText ComplexityLexile Measure AD840L, Guided Reading Level T.
What do You think about The Fantastic Undersea Life Of Jacques Cousteau (2009)?
Good information, but some of the text bubbles fade into the background and are hard to read.
—Fang_Julie
Well done. Interesting, fun, very accessible for youngsters.
—leica246
