Surprising Sharks (Boston Gobe-Horn Book Honors (Awards))

Rating:
Summary: Jaws ah-plenty
Review: Word on the street (which is to say, librarian-based listservs) has it that the book "Surprising Sharks" is incredibly popular these days. Having heard that this book was flying from shelves across the country, garnering the love and respect of thousands of children every day, I thought I'd check it out myself. It's very rare that a non-fiction book becomes overwhelmingly accepted by kids. But when it happens, watch out! It might be all you can do to keep the l'il buggers from reading it day and night and day again.

The book is a clever look at the wide variety of sharks living in ocean waters today. From the tiny sixteen inch cookie-cutter shark (which wins my love on name alone) to the vast twenty-nine foot six inch basking shark, this book has `em all. It includes a variety of amusing factoids in its text, providing copious amounts of useful information. In a well drawn graphic section, the book examines the common properties that all sharks share, both inside and outside the body. Kids reading this book learn about the different parts of the shark and why they're so awfully dangerous. Most interestingly of all, the book makes it perfectly clear that while sharks do kill an average six people a year, people kill an average 100 MILLION sharks a year. The book finishes up with an index of all the sharks in the text (for kids' easy referencing) as well as a bit of shark history to boot.

I was a little sad that author Nicola Davies didn't give any space to a bibliography of sources kids could use to find out more about sharks and their ways. Still, that's small potatoes. Davies certainly seems to have plumbed every last bit of interesting information about sharks she could find. I mean, who knew that the gel-filled pits in a sharks nose detect the electrical messages in a prey's body? Or that latern sharks have light making organs that help them blend into the silvery surface of the water around them? News to me! Illustrator James Croft gives the book an easy-going cartoonish feel that doesn't particularly add much to the book, but neither does it detract. The book's brightly colored and amusing. Just not particularly original in that respect.

If you need a good non-fiction picture book that'll give some of the more scientifically minded kiddies the thrills they seek (and frankly, what kid isn't interested in man-eating animals with big nasty teeth?) "Surprising Sharks" is your best bet. It's not gory, but it'll certain give some kids the thrill of fear they seek in their non-fic lit. An enterprising and engaging book.