Smart About Sharks
Owen Davey
Flying Eye Books
If you want to be shark savvy, you need this for sure. If you love Owen Davey’s work, you need this for sure, so … what are you waiting for?
Here’s why this is a must have for natural history fans, particularly shark lovers; for anyone who is interested in top quality design, stupendously good detail or au courant artwork; this book embodies all of that and more.

What’s more it sparkles with wit – Davey must have had great fun concocting subtitles such as ‘ALL FINS CONSIDERED’, ‘’EAT, PREY, HUNT’, ‘A BITE TO EAT’, ‘HAMMER AND TAIL’ –

to mention just a few.
During the course of his shark foray, Davey dives deep as he explores much and informs plenty. First off that sharks are cartilaginous fish, not boney ones: I seem to recall that from my zoological (dogfish dissection) learning EEEUUGH! We find out much more about their anatomy, their evolution, their diet …

(have I seen that turtle elsewhere, perhaps in another book OD illustrated?), their social life – yes they do have one albeit no tweeting, or FBK-ing – and their reproduction … as well as discovering some sharkish myths.

There’s even an awards spread with rosettes for fastest through the water, best barker (mmm, a woofing shark), laziest – though why that deserves a rosette only Davey knows, and the pièce de résistance surely, is the epaulette shark that gets the award for developing ‘the astounding ability of walking out of water’. That clever so and so can also hold its breath for 60 times longer than one of us mere humans. Wow!

Such amazing skills and what astonishing diversity among the superorder. There’s a very useful index at the back of the book setting out the various shark orders – eight detailed therein – with their Latin names: elasmobranchs all.
This is the way – or one certainly (deep sea diving would be another) – to make factual learning great fun, and to create a hunger for more. It’s enormously engaging both verbally and visually, with a level of sophistication that should ensure a wide interest range. What a way to get ‘SMART ABOUT SHARKS’. Do it, say I!

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