Shark-cam

K-Gr 2--Follow a shark's ocean adventures through a video-cam attached to its head. A predator's life may be exciting, but it can be lonely; all the fish swim and hide whenever Shark comes near. Maybe Octopus will play, maybe dance? Yes! They dance together until Shark has to go. The face of a huge creature fills the camera lens--it's a whale, and its mouth is open and ready to catch all the sea creatures in its path. "Everybody, swim!" warns the shark and saves the day. But now the shark is hungry. Palatini and Yaccarino's "Critter-Cam" collaboration employs the visual device of a video frame and record button illustrated on the right-hand page of each spread to show what the camera sees--the shark's viewpoint. On the verso, readers are privy to the action. The spreads have different underwater landscapes that feel confusing and could make figuring out who sees what tricky. Short sentences on each page support first reading experiences. Repetition of single words with a clear bold typeface supports beginning word recognition. VERDICT For young shark lovers. A predator that acts against type makes for a fun, gentle narrative.--Sarah Webb

For pre-readers familiar with screens and too young for Jaws. A shark ("Swim, Shark. Swim") sporting a webcam on its head grins at us. Right-hand pages show the webcam feed: the terrified faces of small, shell-less sea creatures exclaiming, "TEETH!" "LOTS OF TEETH!" After the sea life frantically departs ("BYE!"), a pink octopus comes into view. In real life, the octopus is prey, but here the two bow cordially to each other as the shark asks the octopus to dance. "Tango? Mambo? Cha-cha-cha?" wonders the octopus, and they proceed to "swing" and "sway" before the blissed-out octopus and shark part. Suddenly, the following page reveals a huge whale, and Shark is sucked into its maw along with smaller fry. The whale seems to have baleen plates, but everything in its mouth is swallowed down a gullet (with a uvula, which whales don't have). It's "very dark" inside the whale, but somehow, when the mouth opens again, shark and fry swim out. Now the "hungry!" shark spots the bottom of a small boat on the surface and jumps in, ejecting the tan-skinned person fishing. As the human swims away in the distance, Shark contentedly reclines, eating an apple abandoned in the quick exit: "Party on, Shark!" Small viewers might struggle with the illustrator's whale-mouth sequence, but the use of simple, short words makes it a solid choice, and the bright graphics convincingly simulate a camera's-eye view. Unreliable on marine biology but effectively deploying a limited vocabulary. (Early reader. 3-6) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.