Tag Chloe Savage

The Search For Our Cosmic Neighbours

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The Search For Our Cosmic Neighbours
Chloe Savage
Walker Books

This awesome book follows Commander Julia and her space team aboard Mission Star Drifter. They have already spent ten years searching the galaxy to discover the answer to humankind’s greatest question: are we alone in the universe? The excitement of their expedition has already worn thin and Commander Julia has finally had enough. However, she decides that rather than declare the mission a failure, they will try one last planet.

What they anticipate is yet another lifeless, desolate wasteland but instead, thanks to the dog, Khan, they find themselves face to face with curious space creatures – a whole community of them. They too have eyes, arms and legs like the human crew but the earthlings have so much to learn

and interestingly the space creatures seem to do lots of things simply for the joy they bring.

Basking in how brilliant it is to be alive in the universe is something the human visitors try for a while; they even defer their return to Earth and stay a bit longer to enjoy this new way of seeing things.

It’s great to see how the book celebrates scientific roles, particularly women in STEM such as the astrobotanist, Lata and of course, Julia the mission’s astrobiologist. It’s great as well that the story will certainly have readers pondering on and discussing what it means to exist in the vast universe.

A book that definitely deserves to be on family bookshelves, in classroom libraries and anywhere else that young people come together.

The Search for Carmella

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The Search for Carmella
Chloe Savage
Walker Books

From the author and illustrator of The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish, comes a follow-up featuring a marine biologist with a passion – this time it’s Dr Rose who studies the ocean and everything in it.

Ever since she was a little girl paddling in rock pools, Dr Rose started learning that there’s joy in the very act of searching: one’s end goal is not the be all and end all, rather it’s the journey that is so amazing, indeed it becomes her way of life. In this story she seeks a sea creature rumoured to live deep in the hidden ocean depths, possibly a myth or maybe a real marine animal – Carmella.

The doctor and her team of scientists and explorers descend to the dark blue-black depths in a submersible, seeking, searching, seeing a multitude of weird and wonderful creatures in an almost pitch-black world but not ‘Carmella-y-enough’ until … it’s time to resurface.

After so many hours however, have they found Carmella?

Full of the awe and wonder of possibility and reality, and stunningly illustrated, this is a unique, almost magical take on being a marine biologist. Share with a primary class and who knows …

The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish

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The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish
Chloe Savage
Walker Books

Dr Morley is passionate about jellyfish; she’s even more passionate about finding the giant Arctic jellyfish, a creature nobody has ever seen. Having spent years researching and planning with the aid of her dedicated crew, she’s ready to start out on an adventure, bound for the icy waters of the Arctic Circle.

Their first animal sighting is of narwhals; perhaps they can lead the ship to that elusive jellyfish: or could it be the scientific data and samples members of her team collect as they dive hopefully into the chill beneath the ice? Days pass, blizzards howl but still the search continues. The days turn to weeks and then months but even then that hope remains strong. Eventually crew members start to think of home: maybe that giant Arctic jellyfish doesn’t really exist.

However, driven by their loyalty to their leader they don’t give up. At last thanks to the sunshine, comes hope in the form of a massive patch of algae. Convinced this is the opportunity she’s been waiting for, Dr Morley dives down.

Can you imagine how she feels on seeing nothing? Time to head home, she decides.

The words tell the story of the expedition from Dr Morley and the crews’ point of view but Chloe Savage’s stunning, action-packed illustrations documenting the search show that the creature is never far away but always, tantalisingly, just out of sight of the exploring party; or is it?