I had to pry this from the grasp of my five-year-old would-be zoologist. He pounced on it and exclaimed delightedly over the large, beautifully presented photographs.

Perry didn't have any trouble reading the title of the book, but I had to read the text to him. His seven-year-old brother didn't have too many problems -- the writing is chatty and informative without being overly technical.

Wade Doak has deliberately made it friendly and interesting, packing facts into personal stories from the fish point of view:

Embedded in my thick skin are dozens of long sharp spines, If danger threatens I can inflate my stomach by swallowing water. Within a minute this makes me grow round like a basketball. All of my spines stand out as firmly as the quills on a hedgehog.

Growth, feeding, predation and mating are all covered, and a sidebar on each of the 14 common species covered within tells us not only where these fish live and what they look like, but also what makes them different. The introductory section covers the things that make fish special, and includes a plea to be friendly with the denizens of the deep.

For someone with a professed ambition to be a fish, Wade Doak hasn't done a bad job of getting under the scales.

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.