The Best Children’s Books About Coral Reefs

A snorkeler’s-eye tour of a Caribbean reef: terns and frigate birds above the water, nurse sharks and octopuses below it.

The plain, clear explanation: how coral polyps build a reef, what the three kinds of reef look like, and who moves in.

Ken Nedimyer grows coral on underwater frames, one fragment at a time, and turns a hobby into reef restoration.

A wisecracking fish guide walks readers through reef biology, from polyp anatomy to the whole food web, in comics.

Anemone wants a friend. Anemone stings everything she touches. Enter Clownfish, who is immune.

A mermaid named Coral hoards a hidden hollow on the reef, and the reef around her stops thriving.

A counting song set on the reef, illustrated entirely in sculpted polymer clay, with ten habitats to find.

The USS Oriskany is stripped, towed out, and sunk on purpose — and a coral reef grows on an aircraft carrier.

Fifteen hundred miles of reef off Queensland, from Captain Cook running aground on it to the scientists monitoring it now.

Lana finds seahorse-like Aquicorns living in the reef outside her aunt’s storm-battered village.

Gracie’s snorkeling trip to Roatán goes sideways — an injury, an insufferable brother, and a reef in worse shape than the brochure promised.

Terry is a plain little fish in Coral Reef City, so he borrows some spectacular fins. Then Eddie the Eel notices him.