This book (by my critique partner, Lisa Kahn Schnell) came in the mail today and our whole family sat down together to read it aloud. It’s packed with fascinating information about horseshoe crabs and the web of life they’re part of. The book is structured around a series of elegantly simple two word sentences, one on each spread of the book:

“They’re coming…It’s happening…They’re feasting…”

Those sentences tell the story concisely; they’d be great to read by themselves to wiggly toddlers. But my fifth and sixth grader lapped up the more in-depth information also included on each spread. Unready for the book to end, we read the back matter aloud together, too (did you know that almost every medical device doctors use on you is dependent on horseshoe crabs?).

Now we just have to plan a trip to Delaware Bay during horsehoe spawning season.

High Tide for Horseshoe Crabs, by Lisa Kahn Schnell, illustrated by Alan Marks. Charlesbridge: 2015