'Wade the Whale' is Released

ENGLAND

Pollution is dangerous and it is immensely affecting the sea where a lot of animals cannot find food anymore. Subsequently, humans will not find food as well, in addition to the polluted water where neither human and sea animals can swim in. "Wade the Whale" by Mohammad Awad follows Wade the whale and Danny the dolphin and their adventures in saving the marine animals from water pollution. This book projects the importance of all micro and macro creatures at sea in the food chain and how pollution can affect human food security.

The importance of the marine animals and their elimination or heavy decline would mean no food for higher levels and causes massive mortalities. This volume highlights pollution by showing the most common sources of it (garbage on beaches and oil pollution) with recommendations on what should be done in both cases and how these affect the marine food chain.

The food chain explains how fish larvae depend on zooplankton to survive and grow and how zooplanktons in turn depend on phytoplankton for the same reasons. In addition, the story shows how the largest animal on Earth (the Blue Whale) depends on a certain zooplankton species (Krills) as a main source of food and how pollution is affecting the life at sea by eliminating the food from the base of the food chain. The story also describes the feeding mechanism of blue and other baleen whales on krills, showing the role of baleen in the mouth of the blue whale in krill capture as well as other baleen whales.

Technical aspects regarding the art and format of this book are also distinctive through mixing both styles of formal illustrations and comics-type art, something rarely seen in this genre. The art makes the readers feel that they are really at sea from the colour scheme plus the more or less realistic-childlike looks of the animals. The content is talking about the food chain and the effects of pollution on food availability for different tropic levels including blue whales that depend on plankton.

The book offers a synopsis in the back cover which was narrated by one of the characters in the story. The covers (as well as the pages inside) form a single picture when spread out and the colours used are similar to those in nature to allow the viewers to get a feeling of the environment, a further attraction for the book.

"Wade The Whale" is mainly directed to six years old and above children and it is composed of 11 illustrations; each constitutes two pages (22 pages in total). It is different from other children's educational stories because it is very simple and straightforward in describing the importance of the marine food chain from base (phytoplankton and zooplankton) to the top (large fish and mammals).

For more information on this book, interested parties may log on to http://www.XlibrisPublishing.co.uk.

About the Author
Mohammad Awad is a marine biologist from Kuwait at Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research. He is interested in researching zooplankton, a field not so commonly explored in the Middle East-a region whose waters are home to numerous zooplankton taxa including fish larvae and a lot of important commercial fish and shrimp. The author has completed his first degree at Kuwait University in 2002, finished his Master's degree at the University of Glasgow, UK in 2008 and currently doing his PhD in UK at the University of Sheffield about food web interactions, especially between plankton and larval fish and he has published scientific papers in his field, most of them in the Journal of Crustaceana under the name Mohammad Ali. The author's full name is Mohammad Awad Ali and he is using the name before the last since most of the people in his country know him by.

Wade The Whale* by Mohammad Awad
Publication Date: 11/13/2013
Picture Book; $25.58; 28 pages; 978-1-4931-0449-9

Members of the media who wish to review this book may request a complimentary paperback copy by contacting the publisher at 1-800-455-039. To purchase copies of the book for resale, please fax Xlibris at (02) 8088 6078 or call 1-800-455-039.

Xlibris books can be purchased at Xlibris bookstore. For more information, contact Xlibris at 1-800-455-039 or on the web at XlibrisPublishing.co.uk.

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