Jellyfish: A Natural History

Product Information

Ali Benjamin (16 February 2016). "Ali Benjamin on "The Thing About Jellyfish" " (Interview). Interviewed by Josh Armstrong. Mountain Valley Hospice . Retrieved 10 June 2018.

By now I was twelve years old and starting my second year of middle school. I knew a few things about grown-ups. And here’s one of the things I knew: Grown-ups are like everybody else—they don’t actually want you to say what you’re thinking.The Thing About Jellyfish is a great story for older children, young teenagers, and it seems this 37 year old girl very much enjoyed it too.

In the end, Suzanne," [she] continued, "it's a gift to spend time with people we care about. Even if it's imperfect. Even if the time doesn't end when, or how, we expected. Even when that person leaves us." Ali Benjamin wrote a book to be very proud about... she makes science come alive --and has us fall deeply in love with our young narrator.What I loved about this book is how believable Suzy's voice and feelings were. The way she narrated the story is gripping and at the same time, flowing smoothly. Her thoughts of the past-- some of them sends a fluttering joy in me but most of them later on tug and linger at the deepest part of my heart. It's heart-aching. Her thoughts of the present, however, reminds me of how sad and painful losing a loved one. The hydrozoan Turritopsis dohrnii, an animal about 4.5 millimetres wide and tall (likely making it smaller than the nail on your little finger), can actually reverse its life cycle. It has been dubbed the immortal jellyfish. Best Books 2015, Middle Grade: The Thing About Jellyfish". Best Books 2015. School Library Journal . Retrieved 10 June 2018. The book shows there is an enormous variation in jellyfish: there are much more differences between some species of jellyfish than there are differences between humans and, let’s say, turtles, or cod, or jays. On the other hand, salps are more closely related to humans than bees or scorpions. The list of nuggets at the end of this review shows a bit of this diversity.

Good books on jellyfish are hard to find: there hardly exist any. I’ve had the German ‘Quallen’ by Thomas Heeger (2004) for years, and that used to be the only comprehensive scientific monograph on the subject: someone should translate that in English.

Watch Julia read Bloom

For many, the Natural History Museum is a place that inspires learning, gives purpose and provides hope. People tell us they 'still get shivers walking through the front door', and thank us for inspiring the next generation of scientists. To reverse the damage we've done and protect the future, we need the knowledge that comes from scientific discovery. Understanding and protecting life on our planet is the greatest scientific challenge of our age. And you can help. Although I enjoy religious and spiritual books, I loved how this had the same emotional impact on me without the religious aspect. I was surprised how learning scientific facts about jellyfish, with a bit of philosophical thought thrown in, could be so emotional and thought provoking. Sometimes you want things to change so badly, you can't even stand to be in the same room with the way things actually are.

In 2019 she was awarded the Arts Foundation Mallinson Rendel Laureate Award, and in 2023 she was University of Otago College of Education Creative New Zealand Children’s Writer in Residence Fellow. Gillette, Sam (26 September 2016). "Reese Witherspoon's Book-To-Movie Club". People . Retrieved 10 June 2018.Most of all, I don’t understand why small talk is considered more polite than not-talking. It’s like when people applaud after a performance. Have you ever heard someone not clap after a performance? People clap every time, no matter whether it was good or bad. They even applaud after the Eugene Field band plays its annual concert, and that’s really saying something. So wouldn’t it be easier and take less time and effort to just not clap? Because it would mean the same thing, which is nothing at all. Medusa cells and polyp cells are different - some cells and organs only occur in the polyp, others only in the adult jellyfish. Transdifferentiation reprogrammes the medusa's specialised cells to become specialised polyp cells, allowing the jellyfish to regrow themselves in an entirely different body plan to the free-swimming jellyfish they had recently been. They can then mature again from there as normal, producing new, genetically identical medusae. The text and illustration in I am Jellyfish perfectly complement each other in this humour-filled tale of small but mighty...This is a book for all the unsung small heroes that will be giggled over and read again and again. Judges' Report, New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults