The Whale Who Swam Through Time: A Two-Hundred-Year Journey in the Arctic

K-Gr 4–This is a fascinating glimpse of what a bowhead whale might have seen over her lifetime in the last 200 years. The whale’s story starts in her infancy—when she’s still nursing from her mother and learning about all the things in the ocean around her, including ships. As her life continues, she becomes a mother and teaches her own calf about how to find food and avoid predators, such as humans. The book covers the impact of humans on whales through increased shipping traffic, oil drilling in the Arctic, and decreased sea ice. The authors include back matter, such a diagram of whale anatomy, information about other arctic animals, as well as information about the people who live in the Arctic, and provides readers with background, and ideas for further questions and research. Beautiful artwork offers a means for understanding the scale as well as the grandeur of the location. This would be an excellent introduction to a unit of Arctic study or a discussion of the impact of global climate change.