The Cod's Tale
Parents may have read or heard of Mark Kurlansky's runaway bestsellerCod: A Biography of the Fish That  Changed the World. It's an improbably fascinating story, and here,  Kurlansky has teamed up with superb illustrator S.D. Schindler to tell it all  over again, this time for kids. The life history of the cod--driven by its  insatiable hunger--is interwoven with the insatiable hunger of people, from the  Vikings onwards. The illustrations are both informative (a cross-section of the  Continental Shelf, a map of the Atlantic) and humorous (comical New Englanders  dancing for joy at the invention of frozen fish fingers). Along the way, the  reader accidentally learns a great deal about the Vikings, the Basques, the  American Revolution, the slave trade--and the current danger, once thought  impossible, that the cod will be fished to extinction. Too chewy for children  under about 5 or 6, this is an excellent bellyful of high-protein nonfiction for  all children and even their parents. (Ages 6 to 12)--Richard Farr