Shark Bite! (Crunchy Board Books) by Little Bee Books

Shark Bite! (Crunchy Board Books) Reviews

• 
  karen

  SHARK WEEK BOARD BOOK!!!
  
  
  
  the purpose of shark week—or the purpose of shark week before discovery's recent trend of airing programs where ‘celebrities encounter sharks’ instead of ‘scientists talk about sharks’—was to teach people that sharks weren’t these villainous deepwater monsters hunting and eating all the humans, and that we should respect, rather than fear them;* a little shark and awe, if you will.
  
  
  
  this board book has the same purpose, but since it’s geared for the under-three crowd, it’s even more oversimplified than “anthony anderson is now ok with sharks existing.”
  
  
  
  or is it?
  
  obviously it’s not *really* about sharks; it’s about EVERYONE GETTING ALONG and DON’T BE AFRAID OF PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES and DEAR GOD HOW DID THIS BOOK GET SO STICKY?
  
  but like the ocean itself, there's subtext and then, miles down, there's even weirder-looking subtext.
  
  
  
  will i spoil this 4-page book? i WILL. three-year-olds shouldn’t be on goodreads reading book reviews anyway. ya NERDZ!
  
  this book is about mark the shark. his life is very lonely, for all the other creatures are afraid of him because he has sharp, scary teeth. like so:
  
  
  
  one day, proving the theory that “everything is a jerk” and fear is just violence waiting to happen, a crab pinches mark’s tail:
  
  
  
  setting off a disproportionately aggressive reaction:
  
  “I’m going to bite all of you!…Come out, come out, wherever you are!…If you won’t be my friends, then you’ll be my dinner!”
  
  into this somewhat awkwardly worded diatribe floats an octopus who is maybe on ecstasy, and she tries to soothe mark’s tantrum by stroking him with her many tentacles but OH NO MARK IS TICKLISH and he laughs and laughs.
  
  
  
  which puts everyone at ease suspiciously quickly—maybe screen the whole ocean for e—but in any case: happy ending yay.
  
  

  The other fish heard Mark laughing. What’s going on? they wondered. They came out of their hiding places and saw that Mark wasn’t so scary after all.
  
  Now Mark the shark has many, many friends.

  
  
  
  
  and now everyone is happy.
  
  but maybe we should re-evaluate, look closer, 'cuz some sharks are terrible.
  
  
  
  ACTUAL LESSON LEARNED: laughter is the best medicine camouflage.
  
  because let’s face it, it is statistically very likely that mark is going to eat a bunch of these new "friends"—apex predators gonna apex predate. and, given the design of this book, it becomes chillingly clear that he has been winnowing them down this whole time. fish-memory and board-book-underestimation being what they are, it's assumed none of y'all will notice.
  
  but start noticing.
  
  this is a pull-the-tab kinda book, where each page works the drawbridge of mark’s mouth like so:
  
  
  
  cronch.
  
  through the wonders of design-economy, one tab controls and reveals two pages worth of different situations occurring in mark’s tummy; one foreshadowing a creature on the next page, and one flashing-back to a creature on the previous, just-turned page.
  
  which really complicates the narrative: characters presumed unharmed are now seen in mark's tummy, while characters we have yet to meet are right there in mark's gullet, and then i guess escaped on the next page? are these mark’s fantasies? or is this, in fact, what has been going on quietly while we have been reading about and sympathizing with poor lonesome mark? this layer of doubt and unreliability is as difficult to unsee as that hand pushing down on the dino-butt of my second favorite apex predator:
  
  
  
  because this, you will remember:
  
  
  
  is the crab who pinched mark's tail on the previous page, and it kinda looks like revenge, served tepid.
  
  
  
  but the pinch occurred while mark appears to be eating some next-page rando-crab, who's just chilling when we turn the page.
  
  
  
  and if rando-crab in mark's tummy while jerk-crab is pinching, and later seen outside of mark, it makes the pinch more of a rescue mission than the bullying the text would have you believe.
  
  
  
  even more problematic is here, where, with her clearly distressed face peering up out from mark’s digestive tract:
  
  
  
  is the hippie octopus who was only trying to help:
  
  
  
  who is now being slowly consumed while everyone cheers, put at ease by a predator's laughter.
  
  
  
  this is subliminally teaching your toddlers that it’s okay to eat people who have wronged you—or even people who have helped you—as long as you hide your monstrous appetite under the mask of smiles and laughter.
  
  
  
  sleep with one eye open.
  
  still unconvinced? check out this last-page happily-ever-after scene:
  
  
  
  you will note that the those two pufferfish; smirky and bystander
  
  
  
  are nowhere to be found... which is probably okay, i mean, really—if frat guys were fishes, amiright?
  
  
  
  the ocean is probably better off without 'em.
  
  but honestly, i just don't know what to think anymore. this book has thrown off my whole moral compass as well as my sense of whether sharks are "just animals doing their thing" or are deeply manipulative sleeper agents working at the discovery channel and this is why we need more maritime lawyers.
  
  
  
  AND THAT IS MY REVIEW OF A BOARD BOOK FOR BABIES!!!!
  
  * the purpose of syfy’s version of shark week is the exact opposite: sharks are going to eat you. wherever you are, regardless of biologic.
  
  
  
  
  
  come to my blog!
• 
  Annie

  It's a sturdy board book with a fun shark bite cardboard to chomp your child's fingers.
  But there's a reason small fish aren't friends with Mark the shark. As soon as this book is over, you just know it's Mark's lunch time.
  Experience of this book is incomplete if you're not struggling with a two year old over which page to be on. He can point out the "Oc'opus!"
• 
  Stephanie

  My daughter is obsessed with "Baby Shark". We didn't want to just get her a book with the song lyrics and so we got this one.
  
  It's cute and she adores it! She loves making up voices for the animals on the page (saying things like "Noooo, Don't eat me!" "Ahhhhh")
• 
  Marti (Letstalkaboutbooksbaybee)

  I LOVE this book for the pull tabs that make the shark chomp his teeth. But the actual story is a little lacking and all the sea creatures seem a little too mean for my liking.
• 
  Elizabeth

  Cute "chomping" book, but the story was bad.
• 
  Cherish Brown

  (5☆ Would recommend & would read again)
  My son loves this book. It is such a great book for adding movement and tactile learning into books.
• 
  Serena

  The story was alright but the interactive options were fantastic!
• 
  Robin

  Cute and happy
• 
  Erin

  This interactive board book is a guaranteed crowd pleaser at storytime!
• 
  Shannon Fay

  Cute book with cool illustrations. A cute story about a shark (and who doesn't think sharks are super cool).
  
  And the best part, the moveable teeth in the book. I got this book for my friend's son (almost 2), and he is in LOVE with this book, just obsessed with it, because of those moveable teeth.
• 
  The Book Box

  Mama gave me almost all of these "chomp" books for Christmas, since I loved Dino Chomp so much. We read them all right after I opened them.
  
  Re-read this whole set of books the other night!
  
  Mama read this to toddlers over Zoom and I "helped"!
  
  Re-read October 2022: Home sick so I read this to myself.
• 
  Laura McLoughlin

  Perfectly fine story about a shark who just wants to make friends. Kids will have fun making the shark mouth move.
• 
  Jill

  Awesome! Kids will love the movable shark teeth.
• 
  Beaugiejuice

  Mark's mouth is very interactive and fun!!