Before the summer of 1916, the settled American view was that a shark would not attack a living person in cool northern water. Not "rarely." Would not. Money had been offered publicly to anyone who could prove otherwise and nobody had collected it.
Then, over twelve days in July, five people were attacked along the New Jersey coast and four of them died. Two of those deaths happened in a muddy tidal creek miles from the ocean.
Tarshis builds a made up ten year old named Chet Roscow into that fortnight. He is new in a small New Jersey town, working shifts at his uncle's diner, and the creek where he and his friends swim is Matawan Creek. Book two in the series, about a hundred pages, $5.99, and our product page carries an Accelerated Reader level of 3.9.
The science it actually teaches
Here is the thing that puts it on the Stealth Science shelf, and it is unusual. Most books teach a child a fact. This one, if you handle it right, teaches a child what it looks like when the experts are wrong and how that gets fixed.
Start with what people believed. The prevailing view among American naturalists was that sharks in temperate northern waters were not a danger to swimmers, and it was held confidently and in public. Twelve days in July 1916 took it apart, and the field had to rebuild its position around evidence it had previously dismissed. That is not a footnote. That is how science actually works, and a child almost never gets to watch it happen at this reading level.
Then the geography, which is the strangest part of the whole event. The first attacks were in the ocean. The last two were in Matawan Creek, which is not the sea. It is brackish tidal water, well inland, brown and shallow, the sort of place children swim precisely because it is not the ocean.
Which sets up the question nobody has answered. At the time a great white shark was blamed, and a great white in the surf zone is entirely plausible. But an animal working miles up a shallow brackish creek fits a bull shark better, because bull sharks can hold their salt balance in fresh and near fresh water in a way almost no other shark can manage. Both cases have real evidence. Neither has won. More than a century later, competent people still argue about which animal, or whether it was even the same animal in the ocean and in the creek.
That last sentence is the most valuable thing in this book. "We do not know" is a legitimate scientific answer and children are almost never shown one.
The salt part is worth doing properly, because it is a lovely piece of physiology for a nine year old. A shark's body is normally about as salty as the sea it lives in, so nothing is trying to move in or out. Put that animal into fresh water and water starts flooding into its tissues from outside, because water moves toward salt. A bull shark handles this with hard working kidneys and a gland that dumps excess salt, and it gets rid of enormous volumes of very dilute urine. That is why one kind of shark can be found far up a river and most cannot go there at all.
And then what the fear did. Boats went out along that coast and killed sharks in large numbers, which is the pattern that has repeated everywhere since. The arithmetic between people and sharks runs overwhelmingly in one direction, and it is not the direction this book puts on its cover. If nobody says that out loud, this story teaches a child fear and calls it biology.
The drawn edition of this story is also on our shelf, and it takes the other half of the science: how a shark finds anything at all in water you cannot see through.
The child it lands with
You have a child who wants shark books, you have bought the picture books and the fact books, and you have run out. That is who this is for, and it is a large group.
It also suits a strong second or third grade reader who likes an argument more than an answer, because the honest version of this story is an argument.
Less obviously: the child who has been told that grown ups know things. Watching a whole field be wrong in public is good for them.
One place to stop and talk
Stop when Chet first sees something in the creek, before the book tells you what it is.
The useful question there is not "do you think it is real." It is: what would a shark even be doing miles inland? Let that sit. Do not answer it.
Because the honest answer is that adults have been arguing about exactly that since before your grandparents were born, and the arguing is the interesting part. If your child asks which side is right, the correct thing to say is that nobody has proved it yet, and then to ask what evidence would settle it. A nine year old can get somewhere real with that question, and it is a better hour than most worksheets.
What to know going in
Four real people died. This is the caution and it should not be softened.
Two of them died in the creek. One was a boy of eleven, Lester Stillwell, and the other was Stanley Fisher, a man who went into the water to bring the boy out and was attacked doing it. The main character of this book is a fictional ten year old who lives.
Sit with what that means for a moment. Your child, reading at roughly a third grade level, is reading about a boy their own size being killed in a creek that sounds like every creek they have ever swum in. That is a real thing to hand a seven or eight year old, and the reading level will not warn you about it because reading level never does.
It will also make some children afraid of water. Not for a week. Some of them keep it, and there is no way to know in advance which ones.
And the honest counterweight, which is on you rather than on the book: a shark thriller written for children is not going to volunteer that bites on people are extremely rare or that people kill vastly more sharks than the other way around. If you do not add that, the book leaves your child with the fear and none of the proportion.
Where to get it
It is $5.99 at I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916.
Being book two means it is one of the earliest and shortest in the series, which makes it a sensible first one for a child who is not ready for a longer chapter book, as long as you have read the caution above and decided yes.
There is a graphic novel of it as well, on our shelf, at nearly twice the price and teaching a different piece of the science. Pick one to start. If you want the argument about evidence, which is the better half, this is the edition that carries it.
If your child liked this one
Books we have written about that sit close to this one, by reading level and by subject.
Attack of the Grizzlies, 1967: Who Fed the Bears
I Survived the Attack of the Grizzlies, 1967 (I Survived #17) by Lauren Tarshis
Grade 2 to 5
California Wildfires, 2018: A Fire Starts Years Early
I Survived the California Wildfires, 2018 (I Survived #20) by Lauren Tarshis
Grade 2 to 5
California Wildfires, 2018 in Panels: How Fire Moves
I Survived the California Wildfires, 2018 (I Survived Graphic Novel #13) by Lauren Tarshis
Grade 2 to 5
Hurricane Katrina, 2005: Why They Could Not Leave
I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005 (I Survived Graphic Novel #6) by Lauren Tarshis
Grade 2 to 5
Browse every book we have written about by age, by kind of book and by subject: Find the right book for your child. Or see the whole Stealth Science shelf.
