Book Review | Secrets of the Saltmarsh

To clarify, Salt marshes are coastal wetlands that are flooded and drained by salt water brought in by the tides.

Salt marshes provide many very useful benefits as a ‘border’ environment – not purely water, not dry land – they filter pollution from the water and provide food and shelter for numerous species of birds, fish, mammals, and shellfish. In the Uited States, for example, given the wildlife productivity and habitat diversity in this area, of ‘Scarborough Marsh’, makes it ‘the most significant of the State of Maine’s coastal Focus Areas.

This book puts the saltmarsh – and its many perhaps less-than-visible  hence ‘secrets’, front and centre.

Rather than boring non-fictional texts, It does so using quite lyrical phrases which are almost poetic. “I am wet and salty… Some of my plants grow only here. I feed and shelter many animals…… each day, ocea. tides fill and empty me…. I am land and water. I need sunshine and rain. I clean the air and the water. I store carbon.” For anyone who doubts the usefulness and numerous benefits of the saltmarsh, this book is happy to set the record straight.

Author Claire Saxby is renowned for simple, yet highly evocative languaged volumes describing parts of the natural world for readers of all ages, but especially younger.

In her work Iceberg, the writing is ‘sophisticated; facts and technical vocabulary are lyrically combined with beautiful description.’

Saxby says ‘Non-fiction and narrative non-fiction stories need research.’ This research is, to me, what sets Secrets of the saltmarsh out from being just another nice nature picture book. ‘I love writing, even when I am gnashing and wailing and moaning that I will never get it right.’ Here, Saxby got it right for the Saltmarsh – and I therfore highly recommend this beautiful young-person’s text for all but especially Australian readers.