City Fish, Country Fish

Mary Cerullo decided at thirteen that she ought to become an oceanographer. Although her career has always centered around the ocean, she discovered that she preferred exploring many different topics, which led her to teach and write about the ocean instead. She likes to immerse herself in her topic, so a few years ago Mary went on an underwater dive with ten Caribbean reef sharks. She has written 20 nonfiction books on ocean life for children, including City Fish, Country Fish, Sharks (a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year), Octopus (a Junior Library Guild Selection), Giant Squid (an Outstanding Science Trade Book selection by the NSTA and the CBC), and The Truth About White Sharks (IRA Teacher's Choice Award). Mary is the associate director of Friends of Casco Bay, an environmental group on the Gulf of Maine. Jeff Rotman started photographing ocean animals as a way to capture the attention of his middle-school students. As a reward when they finished their assignments, he would show them the slides he had taken underwater. He eventually gave up teaching to devote himself to underwater photography. His work has appeared in many popular magazines and books, both for children and adults. Some of his books include a coffee table book of his shark photos and a retrospective of his work.