In this large, square volume, Karas's crafty combination of wit and naivete offers viewers intriguing and amusing marine perspectives. "I am the Atlantic Ocean I begin where the land runs out at the end of yards and streets and hills." The poetic tribute begins just over the hill in a childlike drawing of a youngster riding a bicycle past crudely sketched houses. The simple celebration of sandy beach and salty smell quickly moves far out to sea. "I rub shoulders with North America and bump into Africa I slosh around South America and crash into Europe." There's an occasional comma, but never a period in the meandering reflection. Many beguiling touches emerge in the broad paintings with Karas's characteristic flat figures of people and animals. Faint lines of latitude and longitude or the face of a compass appear in the water, and the shadow of a plane mingles "with skates and whales and fish that fly." An intriguing set of curved arrows encloses snips of scenes on white pages, suggesting the water's circuitous travel from continent to continent. Where "Artists paint pictures of me with cerulean, cobalt and ultramarine," bands of these shades carry phrases quoting well-known poets. In the end, the book is also a lesson about preserving the ocean waters, strongly stated in brief concluding notes. The oblique, poetic references will be best understood by those readers with a bit of background in geography and science. Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.