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Tag: Books about sharks for kids

Two Shark Books for Kids

June 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

To get ready for World Oceans Day, next Monday June 8, 2015, let’s look at two very different children’s picture books about sharks. Interestingly, both of these books were illustrated by the author.

First up, we have Neighborhood Sharks: Hunting with the Great Whites of California’s Farallon Islands written and illustrated by Katherine Roy.

Great white sharks are fierce predators and this book reflects reality. Right up front, the cover sets the tone for this book, showing a shark with something in its mouth and a suggestion of red blood in the water. Some of the illustrations within the book show the sharks grabbing and eating seals (see a time lapse video at YouTube of Katherine Roy creating one of the illustrations). Certain children are going to find this thrilling and others are probably not. As with any book with potentially disturbing images, it is a good idea to prepare young readers in advance and let them choose whether they want to continue.

That is not to say that this book is about gratuitous violence. In fact, it contains a number of fascinating scientific illustrations detailing the body of the shark, how its blood circulates to help heat up this cold-blooded fish, how its eyes work, how its teeth work, and what makes its jaws unique. Learning facts about any animal definitely helps make it less fearsome.

Neighborhood Sharks has won many awards and honors, including:

Age Range: 7 – 11 years
Publisher: David Macaulay Studio (September 30, 2014)
ISBN-10: 1596438746
ISBN-13: 978-1596438743

In direct contrast, Wandering Whale Sharks written and illustrated by Susumu Shingu is a gentle book for younger children that follows the largest fish in the world, the whale shark. It was originally published in Japan in 1991, and has recently be translated and republished by Owlkids Books Inc.

Beginning with the lines…

What human beings believe
is the surface of the sea
might just be a ceiling of air
for all the fish living below.

…the reader is taken on a beautiful journey through the ocean depths to meet a placid giant and its friends.

The illustrations largely feature black and blue, giving the feeling of being completely under water. The images are incredibly peaceful and the text lyrical, making the book a lovely choice for reading aloud to a group of children.

The back matter consists of a page of factual information about whale sharks, such as how big they are, where they are found, and how fast they swim (around 2 1/2 miles per hour). Like whales, whale sharks swim the worlds oceans feeding on krill and tiny fish with their large mouths. Unlike whales, they are fish and do not have to return to the surface to breathe. The last sentence in the back matter is particularly poignant as the author points out there is much we don’t know much about these fish and currently they are vulnerable to extinction.

Wandering Whale Sharks is the type of informational picture book that is likely to appeal to a variety of audiences. Highly recommended!

Age Range: 4 – 8 years
Publisher: Owlkids Books (March 17, 2015)
ISBN-10: 1771471301
ISBN-13: 978-1771471305

Related:

Short, but informative video about whale sharks (there may be a pop-up ad)



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Be sure to check our Growing with Science ocean science and beach science categories (with some overlap) for many ocean and beach themed-activities.

We also have a growing list of children’s books about oceans at Science Books for Kids.

Finally, we recently had Beach Book Week at Wrapped in Foil, with a list of beach science books and a review of The Beach Book: loads of things to do at lakes, rivers and the seaside.

Disclosures: The books above were from our local library. Also, I am an affiliate for Amazon. If you click through the linked titles or ads and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Proceeds will be used to maintain this self-hosted blog.

Come visit the STEM Friday blog each week to find more great Science, Technology, Engineering and Math books.

New Book for Kids: Searching for Great White Sharks

September 19, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Big animals like great white sharks are often the objects of strong emotions, which can lead to the spread of misinformation and myth. For that reason, nonfiction books for kids like Searching for Great White Sharks: A Shark Diver’s Quest for Mr. Big (Shark Expedition) by Mary M Cerullo and photographs by Jeffrey L Rotman are so important.

This book is unique because Mary Cerullo tells the story of world-renowned underwater photographer Jeffrey Rotman’s quest to capture great white sharks on film and the readers get to see the resulting up close photos he took. Thus, the text and illustrations are tied together intimately. Cerullo gives Rotman’s first impressions of the sharks when he finally meets one face to face (big and stealthy!) and details of how he photographed them (wait!).

Rotman traveled around the globe, following the great white sharks as they search for food from Australia to South Africa and then to Guadalupe Island in Mexico.

oceans(Imagery by Jesse Allen, NASA’s Earth Observatory, using data from the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) produced by the British Oceanographic Data Centre.)

Sprinkled in are facts about great white shark biology and behavior.  For example, great white sharks are fish and fish are cold-blooded, so great white sharks must be cold-blooded, right? Not really. It turns out that great white sharks have the ability to warm their bodies above the temperature of the surrounding water, so they are not strictly cold-blooded. 

Although written for children, this book does not gloss over or sanitize the fact that people sometimes get bitten by great white sharks. In fact, on page 13 is the story of Rodney Fox, a man who was bitten by a shark. The text is accompanied by small but very graphic photographs of his extensive wounds.

In what has become an all too familiar theme for books about animals, Cerullo also reports that the numbers of great white sharks in the oceans are declining to the point where they are a vulnerable species (getting closer to extinction). She mentions conservationists are working to get laws passed to protect great whites and also are pushing for the creation of more and larger marine sanctuaries as ways to prevent their disappearance.

Searching for Great White Sharks is a topical book, given the interest generated by popular media such as Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. It is a perfect antidote to some of the hype, yet it is also likely to generate more realistic interest in these important and fascinating fish.

If you enjoy this title, check out the others in the Shark Expedition series.

Age Range: 11 – 15 years
Grade Level: 5 – 7
Publisher: CompassPointBooks  (July 1, 2014)
ISBN-10: 0756549078
ISBN-13: 978-0756549077

 

Disclosures:  The book was provided by the publisher for review purposes. I am an affiliate for Amazon, and if you click through the linked titles or ads and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. Proceeds will be used to maintain this self-hosted blog.

 

Come visit the STEM Friday blog each week to find more great Science, Technology, Engineering and Math books.

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This post is part of our ocean science series. Visit the landing page for links to all the related posts.

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