Seadragon sea by Margaret Spurling

Published by Working Title Press, 2005

MARGARET SPURLING was born in Adelaide, SA, where she grew up having a childhood filled with books. She became an avid reader after discovering the “Millie Molly Mandy” books in a library lesson in Grade 3. Visits to the Children’s Library in Adelaide then became a weekly necessity. Bush walking in the foothills near home and visits to the beach were other loves. A love of nature also came from a childhood of playing under old olive trees in the back garden of her home.

She became a Junior Primary teacher on leaving school and taught in schools in the metropolitan area. Teaching children to read and watching their progress was a real thrill. She no longer teaches  but enjoys the challenge of writing picture books. Her first published picture book, Bilby Moon, was listed as a Notable Australian Children’s Book 2001 by the Children’s Book Council of Australia. Bilby Moon was inspired by camping trips with family and friends in the lower northern areas of South Australia and the Coorong. Her second picture book, Seadragon Sea, came from holidays at southern coastal towns. She still resides in South Australia with her husband and family.

DANNY SNELL grew up in Adelaide, and trained at the Central  School of Art and the University of South Australia before graduating with a Bachelor of Design (Illustration) in 1992. His first major picture book Whose Tail Is That? written by Christine Nicholls, was published by Working Title Press in 1999, and shortlisted the following year for the Children’s Book Council’s Crichton Award for first time children’s book illustrators. His second book, the best selling Australiana title, Bilby Moon, written by Margaret Spurling, was nominated as  Notable Book for 2001 and shortlisted for the 2001 Kids Own Australian Literature Award (KOALA). Since then he has illustrated as well as The Long Way Home by Emily Rodda, and Scary Bear by Tania Cox. His latest book is Seadragon Sea .When he is not illustrating children’s books, he works as a freelance artist. He lives with his partner Louise and their daughters, Leilani and Daisy.

SYNOPSIS
Seadragon Sea is a picture book written for children aged 3 to 7 years. It is a versatile book which is also suitable as a resource for older primary school children who will appreciate the educational issues of marine biodiversity that the story presents. They can enjoy the fauna and flora from the illustrations and use it as a discussion resource for the more complex issues involved in the protection of the marine environment.

The story traces the journey of the main character, a baby Leafy Seadragon, in its first day of life. The baby seadragon and its nine brothers and sisters hatch out of their eggs in deeper water and immediately begin their journey back to shallow water to find food and shelter. The baby seadragon becomes separated from his siblings and must find his way alone. Along the way he encounters a variety of marine animals which direct and encourage him in his search for the beautiful seagrass meadow which is his real home. The story concludes with all ten baby seadragons reunited.

WRITING STYLE
A picture book of 32 pages, it is an Australiana book. On one level it is the story of the baby seadragon’s quest, but it is also a counting book. The text is easy to read aloud and would suit the reading level of Year 2 onwards. Very young children will enjoy listening to the story and following the adventure from the colourful and beautiful double-paged illustrations which faithfully depict the marine fauna and flora of the southern coastal waters.

The animals featured in the story are the Leafy Seadragon, the Southern Eagle Ray, the Spotted Wobbegong, the Giant Australian Cuttlefish, Rondelet’s Flying-fish, the Common Weedfish, the Common Dolphin, seaslugs, sea stars and seahorses.

ILLUSTRATIONS
Seadragon Sea contains many sea creatures, some familiar to us such as
dolphins and starfish, and many unusual and exotic creatures such as
sea slugs and the wobbegong, not to mention the seadragons themselves.
So quite a bit of research was required to familiarise myself with them
all and to tease out their characters and personalities.

In the past when researching books I've been able to make trips to the zoo to
observe the various animals in the flesh, but obviously this wasn't possible for Seadragon Sea. Instead I relied on many trips to libraries, the museum as well as searching on the internet.

The baby seadragons in particular required some researching as they
differ in appearance from their mature parents and good reference
material was difficult to come by. When only minutes / hours old the
baby seadragon has quite a short snout and only a few of the
spectacular fronds that it will develop when fully matured. Their
colouring is different as well. Where the adult is yellowish in colour,
the babies are almost translucent with a few striped markings. In this
instance it took some artistic license giving the makings and fronds an
orange tone so that they would stand out on the page, otherwise they
would have been too well camouflaged and faded into the background.

There are also a few strange and exotic plants that make up the
underwater landscape, but on the whole I've kept the background fairly
simple to keep the focus on the many creatures. Instead I've made a
feature of the watery environment giving it depth and character through
the use of colour and texture. The paint was applied very freely often
with a palette knife. Though I had to be careful and ensure that the
top of the page wasn't too distracting and light enough for the text to
be legible.

I made a conscious decision to keep the seadragon a consistent size
through the majority of the book. In this way the main character
becomes a constant visual anchor as the many creatures of varying sizes
and shapes are encountered during the journey. Keeping the baby
seadragon small also helps to highlight his sense of vulnerability.

As the story is about a journey I made sure that the seadragon
consistently moves from left to right - often appearing on the left
page while the creatures he encounters come in from the right. This is
another visual tool and sets up a rhythm that helps tie the book
together. Whenever the seadragon appears on the right hand page it is
to give the impression of speed as he moves out of the composition.
Seadragon Sea is also a counting book so I needed to ensure that
firstly I had the correct number of sea creatures and also that none
were too obscured from view, while at the same time keeping the
composition fairly naturalistic and not too regimented.

My preferred medium when illustrating has always been acrylics. When
starting this book I toyed with pen and ink with watercolour, as well
as illustrating on the computer, before settling back with acrylics
(I'm not proficient enough when it comes to pen and ink, and I
encountered a number of technical problems on the computer). As
acrylics are familiar to me I feel comfortable splashing them around
and they enable me to create some wonderful textures and the colours
are always so vibrant which allowed me to make a feature of the watery
environment.

AUTHOR INSPIRATION
Growing up in South Australia and visiting local beaches looking for seahorses and seadragons that might have been washed to shore in a storm, Margaret has always been aware of the diverse and interesting marine life of the southern seas.

Many books have been written about the plants and animals of the Great Barrier Reef and Margaret felt that it was appropriate to write a story about some of the lesser known plants and animals of the southern temperate waters. The colours of the southern organisms can be just as colourful as tropical species.

Several years after the story was written, and during the publication process, the Leafy Seadragon was officially adopted as the marine emblem of South Australia on 8 February 2001.

Background information on the hatchling Leafy Seadragon came mainly from the Australian Geographic magazine (No. 12 Oct – Dec 1988) in an article titled “Birth of a Leafy Seadragon” by Rudie Kuiter. This article describes a diving expedition looking for Leafy Seadragons at Victor Harbor, a beach town south of Adelaide. It is this article that theorises that the adult Leafy Seadragons migrate to deeper water to hatch their young. It was by taking the boat further from the shore that Rudie Kuiter eventually found an egg-laden male.

Further background information came from “Australian Marine Life” by Graham J. Edgar Pub. 1977 by Reed Books. It is interesting to note that Rudie Kuiter was a major photographic  contributor to this book.    

STUDY NOTES –

EDUCATIONAL APPLICABILITY

Maths for Pre-school, Reception & Year 1.

• TIME 

Can be used with the Measurement Strand to discuss the concept of morning and evening. This strand also deals with the sequence of events and the cycle of events, which could be discussed from the contents in this story.

• SPATIAL TERMS

Spatial terms are used in this story. They are “middle of the reef”, “over the rocks”, “bottom of the sea”, “behind his fronds”, “over seaweeds” and “under seaweeds”.

• COUNTING from 1 to 10.

ISSUES

Science and Society & Environment for Primary School Levels.

• MARINE LIFE

Look at the unique species found in the temperate coastal waters of southern Australia.

• PROTECTION OF MARINE AREAS

• to safeguard marine biodiversity
• to ensure viability of regional industries such as fishing, aquaculture and tourism.
  

• WHO PROTECTS THESE AREAS?  What do they do?

• Threatened Species Network
• Australian Marine Conservation Society
• Dragon Search
• Water-watch
• Water & Rivers Commission
• Environmental Protection Authority
• Marine & Coastal Community Network
• World Wildlife Fund
  

• WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO PROTECT THESE AREAS?

Marine ecosystems and the diversity within them are important to humans for a number of reasons:

• subjects for research and education
• spiritual and recreational benefits
• food, medicines and industrial products
• Ecological services, which include pollutant absorption, climate regulation, prevention of coastal and seabed erosion, maintenance of water quality, storage and recycling of nutrients and the production of some kinds of sand and rocks.

DISCUSSION POINTS

• The marine biodiversity of the southern coastal waters of Australia is just as spectacular, but much less well known, than that of the Great Barrier Reef. Many of the species are found nowhere else in the world.

• The ecosystem diversity of this area is characterised by a variety of different physical environments such as:
• saltmarsh and mangrove ecosystems
• seagrass ecosystems
• shallow water reefs dominated by marine algae
• deeper reefs dominated by invertebrates
• bryozoan (lace coral) beds
• sponge gardens
• shelly mud habitats

3.    The species diversity associated with this range of ecosystem       
types is surprising to most Australians:
-  more than 1,200 species of marine plants
-  more than 600 species of marine fish
-  33 marine mammal species of whales, dolphins, seals & sea lions
-  22 species of seagrasses
-  more than 6,000 invertebrates

4.    The Leafy Seadragon is famed for its use of camouflage and is rarely  
seen, even by experienced researchers actively searching. However,
there are significant populations present. Its rocking motion of
swimming also imitates the movement of seaweed in the ocean
surge, contributing to its invisibility.

        5.   Public perceptions usually confuse seagrasses and seaweeds, yet 
the former have a rhizome and a root system, while the latter are
macroalgae and have root-like attachment structures called holdfasts.

       6.     Seagrass loss has seemed an inevitable result of human activity. With
improving understanding of the consequences of land-based actions,
measures to arrest seagrass loss are being developed. One such
initiative is the Catchment Environment Levy of the South Australian
government. This is an initiative to protect and manage water
resources. Species become endangered with habitat loss and the
Leafy Seadragon is not immune from this.

        7.   The sponge gardens of the southern temperate waters are among the
most brightly coloured creatures, although it is commonly believed  that Queensland’s coral reefs are much more colourful. The sponges grow in shaded water and are not so obvious from the surface.
What are the threats to sponge gardens?