"Here There Be Monsters: The Legendary Kraken and the Giant Squid" is written by HP Newquist.
The book is divided into four parts. The first one explains some of the Tales of the sea serpent throughout history. There are beautiful illustrations throughout the entire book, ancient maps, photos of ancient pottery, photographs, and old drawings.
The second part's title is What was imagined might be real, this section explains more about history and how towards 1870 more of the beasts were found dead on beaches around the world and the effect on science and people.
The third part is A real-life monster, scientists discover more about these creatures and this chapter explains more about the giant squids, describing every part. The parrot-like beak on the giant squid might be weird, we learned, but the inside of its mouth is "like something from a horror movie. Architeuthis has a tongue-like muscle covered with rows of tiny, sharp blades, also made of chitin (chitin is hard bony substance)." There's many more interesting facts about the giant squid in this part!
Finally, the last part is called The monster rises and here is the subtitle which says it all "the myth of the kraken and the portrayal of the giant squid as a huge predator have been kept alive in front of movie cameras-and in the pages of books-for a long time." This part talks about movies and books, but also about the expeditions and their results.
Here is a great site to see photos from a dissection done by New Zealand scientists of a colossal squid (which is different than the giant squid), and a giant squid: A Close Look at the Colossal Squid. Check out the photo of the colossal squid's tentacles with the hooks (it's the 5th picture), the beak is next!
If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please leave a link to your post in the mr. linky below. Happy Reading!
Here There Be Monsters looks intriguing and is definitely going in our library queue! It would have fit nicely in the Sea Monsters & Atlantis unit study we did to get us back in the swing of things in the fall of 2008. I have a list of the resources we used here if you are interested!
ReplyDeleteWow, that book looks insanely interesting. How funny that both our books (although our is a board book) have to do with giant squid!
ReplyDelete