The great white man-eating shark: A cautionary tale

Margaret Mahy's many books - picture books, short stories, and fiction for teenagers as well as younger children - have been hugely successful all round the world and she was indisputably one of the most popular and successful 20th-century children's authors. She won the CARNEGIE MEDAL and many other awards, and was nominated for the HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN AWARD. Margaret died in July 2012.Jonathan Allen is a children's author and illustrator who lives near Cambridge. He has had more than 40 children's titles published, including I'M NOT SCARED! and I AM A DOG.

Although very different from her acclaimed 17 Kings and 42 Elephants , Mahy's newest book is sure to be a winner. The star is a crafty boy named Norvin, whose acting aspirations are thwarted by the fact that "he looked very like a shark." So Norvin takes to the water instead, but gets cross when the other swimmers at Caramel Cove get in his way. The resourceful lad makes a plastic dorsal fin and straps it to his back. He then proceeds to terrify the other swimmers, who cower on the sand and refuse to go back in the water for days. Now Norvin has the cove to himself--until an amorous female shark appears, and Norvin discovers--to his horror--that his disguise fools even her. Mahy's amusing tongue-in-cheek tale meets its match in Allen's droll drawings. Norvin's wonderfully shifty eyes and the vivid expressions on the faces of his victims are certain to tickle funnybones. Ages 4-8.
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