Sharkabet FROM THE PUBLISHER
Sharkabet: A Sea of Sharks from A to Z is a thrilling, chilling book for children of all ages. Featuring Ray Troll's spectacular fishy art, this book portrays sharks both living and extinct, swimming throughout the pages. Troll's colorful, eye-popping images draw readers in, while catchy, fun factoids are offered for the different fascinating shark varieties. In back is an info-packed field guide featuring everything you didn't know about these weird and wonderful creatures.
A self-described a-fish-ionado, Troll's edgy, amazing murals, posters, T-shirt art, and paintings have been shown in galleries nationwide, featured on the Discovery Channel and in numerous publications, and seen at museum venues including the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the California Academy of Arts and Sciences. An exhibition of Troll's shark art will travel nationally in 2002-3. His books include Life's A Fish and Then You Fry by Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company. "SHARKABET is a fun, unique way to look at the world of sharks and the alphabet at the same time! Ratfish Ray covers some of the most amazing of the 400+ species of shark on the planet-and some extinct sharks, too. The illustrations are brilliant and every shark fact is clearly among the most fascinating of all shark facts known to humans!"-Chris and Martin Kratt, TV hosts of Zoboomafoo and Kratt's Creatures
FROM THE CRITICS
Children's Literature - Cherie Haas
Extinct or alive, the sharks in this book are well drawn with creative backgrounds and scenery to catch your eye. There is a shark representing each letter of the alphabet, hence the title. A shark family tree gives an overview of how sharks are related, with a brief introduction explaining that sharks are cartilaginous, meaning they are made of cartilage rather than bones, and that they're also called chondrichthyans, or cartilage fish. The bulk of the book is examples of sharks drawn in ways to make it easy to remember what the shark is called. For example, the dogfish glide over a field with running dogs at their sides, and the kidney-headed sharks swim through a sea of kidney beans. A section of shark facts is included, with information about their hunting skills, their teeth, skin and extra senses, and how humans threaten the species. Although only one sentence accompanies the main artwork in the book, there is a field guide at the end, giving interesting information about each shark that is represented. For each shark, this includes common names, length, color, range, remarks with extra facts, and the shark's general population status. Education and fun come together in this fact-filled book.
School Library Journal
K-Gr 4-An extraordinary alphabet of chondrichthyans from angel sharks to zebra sharks with a nifty intermingling of current and extinct species. In an introductory segment, Troll states that to make things "simpler" he is calling "all of the chondrichthyans sharks." This arbitrary personal classification allows him to include such non-sharks as rays, guitarfish and chimaeras in his alphabet soup, sadly to the detriment of scientific purity. Two pages of "Amazing Shark Facts" precede his "Shark Field Guide," which carefully points out the non-sharks in his lineup, presenting data on size, color, range, status, and fascinating "general remarks," all of which provide enough information for the merely curious and a sturdy launching platform for further investigations. However, the book's greatest asset is the brilliant art bursting from the pages like jewels. Often whimsical (nurse sharks are shown gliding about a patient in a hospital bed) or very dramatic (an extinct megalodon attacking a pod of prehistoric cetaceans), the images glow on the pages like mixed-media gems.-Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
ACCREDITATION
Ray Troll is an acknowledged artist laureate of the deep and fishy. While he paints fish both common and exotic, he is particularly interested in the strange and curious sea creatures of the past. A resident of Ketchikan, Alaska, Troll has traveled the world to see-and paint-some of the strangest fish living today.
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