Sharks: Biggest! Littlest! [Hardcover]

Sandra Markle (Author), Doug Perrine (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2008 | Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up

Discover the amazing survival skills of the sea's most fearsome predators. Here are thirteen of the world's most amazing meat eaters of the sea - from the all-time favorite, the great white, to the chilling little cookie-cutter shark. One is huge. Another is small. One has a giant snout or tail or head. Another has tiny horns or little skin flaps. Readers will learn how each of these traits - big or little - helps a particular type of shark survive in the fish-eat-fish world of the sea. Sandra Markle teams up with world-renowned marine-life photographer Doug Perrine to give young readers an entertaining, exciting introduction to sharks.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 3–4—This is a much simpler, more general work than Markle's Outside and Inside Sharks (S & S, 1996). Excellent color photos follow the clear text, which describes "big" and "little" sharks and the physical oddities of such disparate species as Ornate Wobbegongs, Longnose Sawsharks, and Great Whites. A descriptive passage on teeth and another on denticles are included. Also shown is the hatching of an egg-laying Swell Shark and the live birth of a Lemon Shark. A global distribution map of species mentioned is provided. Team this book with Laurence Pringle's handsome Sharks!: Strange and Wonderful (Boyds Mills, 2001) and Miranda MacQuitty's Shark (DK, 2008) for a fresh look at a fish with a fascinating family tree.—Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Bright, clear color photos and informative text introduce young readers to the biggest and littlest sharks as well as sharks with some of the strangest features. In the same series as Snakes: Biggest! Littlest! (2005), Markle discusses how a shark’s physical features (such as its size, long tail, saw-shaped snout, or hammer-shaped head) allow the fish to survive in its specific place on earth. With just the right amount of detail for the intended audience, the large-print text is interspersed between fascinating pictures of sharks in their environments. There are also plenty of close-up shots of shark teeth, sure to thrill young shark enthusiasts. Although there is no index, this book concludes with a full-color world map pinpointing the location of each shark mentioned in the text, a brief glossary, and a list of age-appropriate resources to find more information. Grades 1-3. --Shauna Yusko

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Boyds Mills Pr (October 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590785134
• ISBN-13: 978-1590785133
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 10.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,910,081 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

SANDRA MARKLE

Sandra Markle is the author of more than 200 books for children, such as A Mother's Journey (Charlesbridge, 2006), How Many Baby Pandas (Walker, 2009), The Case of the Vanishing Golden Frogs (Millbrook, 2011), Butterfly Tree (Peachtree Publishing, 2011). She has won numerous awards for this work, including Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book, Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book, SB& F finalist, John Burroughs List of Nature Books for Young Readers, Junior Library Guild Selection, Orbis Pictus Recommended Book, Charlotte Zolotow Award, and MORE.
She was honoured with the title of "Best of Children's Non-Fiction" Georgia Author Of The Year award five times and was named one of 1999's Women of the Year by Women in Technology International for her contributions to science and technology.

In addition to her books, Sandra Markle has developed science specials for CNN and PBS. She is also noted for developing On-Line Expedition: Antarctica, one of the first on-line educational programs and continued adding further on-line reports from Antarctica while working on book projects in 1996 and 1999 as a grantee for the National Science Foundation's Artists and Writers Program.

Reviewers have heaped praise on Markle's books, including:
Outside and Inside Bats "The author presents a particularly felicitous accord of words and pictures in an outstanding science book for the primary grades." The Horn Book Magazine
Outside and Inside Alligators "This newest installment of the Outside and Inside series adds another fine book to a top-notch series." Bookselling This Week, a Kid's Pick of the Lists
Outside and Inside Dinosaurs It's like sitting down with a dinosaur expert who happens to be a great teacher." The Horn Book Magazine

Sandra Markle remains proudest, though, of the praise she has received in fan mail from children. She's happy to fulfill the requests of the young readers that urge her to "please write more."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Number two winner for our first graders!, July 15, 2009

By 

Sylvia Bergeson "bergesonsy" (Des Moines IA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sharks: Biggest! Littlest! (Hardcover)

I am a school librarian in Ankeny, Iowa. I had around 100 1st graders read a group of 25 books published within the last year. This book was voted number two! Marveltown by Bruce McCall was number one - another boy favorite.

5.0 out of 5 stars If you thought there were only a few different types of sharks you will be amazed at the variety in this book!, July 9, 2009

By 

D. Fowler "Dragonfly77" (Vermont) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sharks: Biggest! Littlest! (Hardcover)

Some are super-sized and we're not talking about a burger and fries here. There are sharks like the Basking Shark that "can be as long as 32 feet." But then on the other end of the spectrum there is the Spined Pygmy shark that is "shorter than a sheet of notebook paper." That is quite a contrast in size for a species! The largest shark is a Whale Shark that is as long as a truck, or about 45 feet. Now that is one critter I don't think many of us would care to encounter. Oddly enough, these two huge sharks only eat small fish and plankton. Scientists think that part of their survival mechanism concerns the size of their body. If there is not food to be had, they can live on their body resources.

This book talks about many different kinds of sharks including the Great White Shark, the Cookie-Cutter Shark, the Thresher Shark, the Longnose Sawshark, the Hammerhead Shark, the Ornate Wobbegong Shark, the Port Jackson Horned Shark, the Swell Shark and the Lemon Shark. Each one is very unique and you'll learn many things about them. You'll learn about how they eat, the type of prey they go after, how they hunt, their size, the body parts, their teeth (WOW!), how they can camouflage themselves, their denticles (protective armor) and you'll see how some of them are born.

This is a very well researched and fascinating book to read. If you thought there were only a few different types of sharks you will be amazed at the variety in this book. There are numerous, stunning full color photographs and interesting sidebars scattered throughout the text. In the back of the book there is a world wide map showing where each shark lives, "shark words," and additional recommended book and website resources. Do you know which shark "gulps in seawater and swells to nearly twice its size" to avoid being eaten? If not, you just might want to read this marvelous book!