A team of five researchers, led by 69-year-old psychologist Jennifer Mather, have gathered on the island of Moorea, near Tahiti, as part of ongoing research into octopus behavior. Jennifer is interested in how octopuses think, solve problems, and develop individual personalities. Author Sy Montgomery and photographer Keith Ellenbogen have joined the group and chronicle efforts first to locate octopuses, which are accomplished masters of camouflage, and then to observe and document what the octopuses do. Four of the five researchers in the group are women, and all of them share appreciation for these intelligent, fascinating, and incredibly diverse creatures. As with other best books in the Scientists-in-the-Field series, Montgomery’s narrative introduces each scientist and chronicles the frustrations and success of their field research, in addition to aspects of octopus biology and behavior. The author’s enthusiasm for her subjects—human and octopus alike—propels a narrative of significant length accompanied by captivating color photographs. (Age 11 and older)

With three hearts and blue blood, its gelatinous body unconstrained by jointed limbs or gravity, the octopus seems to be an alien, an inhabitant of another world. It's baggy, boneless body sprouts eight arms covered with thousands of suckers--suckers that can taste as well as feel. The octopus also has the powers of a superhero: it can shape-shift, change color, squirt ink, pour itself through the tiniest of openings, or jet away through the sea faster than a swimmer can follow.
But most intriguing of all, octopuses--classed as mollusks, like clams--are remarkably intelligent with quirky personalities. This book, an inquiry into the mind of an intelligent invertebrate, is also a foray into our own unexplored planet. These thinking, feeling creatures can help readers experience and understand our world (and perhaps even life itself) in a new way.