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You are here: Home / Book Reviews / The Shark King

The Shark King

April 2, 2024 by Sarah Laucks

Some graphic novels are simply superb! This one, from the publisher TOON Books, is an example of the tremendous reading experiences that await kids in quality graphic novels.

The Shark King
Category: Book Reviews, Emerging Readers, Graphic NovelsTag: R. Kikuo Johnson, TOON Books

Affiliate Disclosure

Graphic novels can be superb! THE SHARK KING, from TOON Books, is an example of a quality reading experience available in a graphic novel.

Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
  • Why This Book
  • Book Facts
  • Expansion Circle Ideas
  • Get the Book
  • See Inside

Why This Book

  1. All TOON Books are leveled to help you match books to your child’s reading level. They also include helpful notes on “how” to read a graphic novel. These notes can be very helpful.
  2. TOON Books are very well-designed so they help children develop their reading skills. One of the complaints about graphic novels is that they don’t do a good job challenging the reading skills for kids. But it is possible for a graphic novel to help kids build reading skills – and TOON Books are an example of how that can be done. In many ways TOON Books give us the best of both worlds – they are highly enjoyable due to the many illustrations AND they help children become better readers.
  3. The book fair at your child’s school may feature graphic novels, but unfortunately those graphic novels are often not the highest quality. The stories are not the best and can portray behaviors we don’t want kids to model. The illustrations and writing are also sometimes weak. We hope this situation improves in the future, but at the time of the writing of this article it is unfortunately the case with the most commonly used book fair company. Instead of the cheaply produced book fair books, you can introduce your young reader TOON Books. Now they can enjoy books that are both high quality AND fun to read.

Book Facts

Author and Illustrator: R. Kikuo Johnson

Copyright: Published in 2012

Publisher: TOON Books

Age Range: Grades 2 and 3

Type of Reader: Emerging Readers, Early Independent Readers

About the Book Art: The artwork for this book was drawn in ink and colored digitally.

Awards: Winner of many awards including Winner of the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association’s Literature Award; Association for Library Service to Children’s Graphic Novels Reading List 2013, 2014, 2016; Greater Boston Jewish Coalition for Literacy’s July Book of the Month, and more.

Expansion Circle Ideas

Culture: Looking for a book to read with emerging readers during Asian Pacific American Islander Month, celebrated in May each year? The Shark King is an excellent choice. The book tells the story of young Hawaiian boy and aspects of his life that are unique to being Hawaiian. The cartoonist is Hawaiian and his book takes readers inside his native world and culture.

Explore More: Visit the publisher’s website for TOON Books to discover more wonderful and high quality graphic novels. There’s a lovely section with activities for kids and some articles for parents. You may also enjoy the additional resources for this book available on this page of the Toon Books website.

Geography: Do you have a globe? It’s a great thing to include at your home. Looking at a map of the world that is flat is not the same experience as seeing the placement of countries and more on a globe. After reading this book get your globe out and find the state of Hawaii with your kids. It’s especially important for them to see Hawaii’s location on the globe versus a flat map – the flat map often shows Hawaii as being very close to the coast of California and young children don’t grasp the actual distance between the mainland USA and Hawaii out in the Pacific.

Get the Book

The Shark King is available both new and used.

  • Buy new from Bookshop.
  • Buy used from Thriftbooks.

See Inside

Click any photo to view it larger.

The Shark King 1
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The mission of Beehive Books and Arts is to be a resource for anyone who has kids in their life that are learning to read and to love reading. 

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