There's a Shark in the Bath by Sarah McIntyre

There's a Shark in the Bath by Sarah McIntyre
Buy There's a Shark in the Bath by Sarah McIntyre at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: For Sharing
Reviewer: Anne Thompson
Summary: A jolly and enjoyable picture book about a little girl who meets a family of sharks in her bathroom one morning. The story and the wonderful vibrant illustrations should make you smile.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 32	Date: January 2014
Publisher: Scholastic
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 9781407121918
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What would you do if you found a shark in your bath? Or worse still, if you found a whole family of sharks in there? As luck would have it the person who does discover her bath has been invaded by scary sea creatures is Dulcie and Dulcie is one of life’s copers. She uses her skills and several sneaky games in her efforts to outwit the sharks in this jolly and enjoyable adventure.

The shark family arrives as Dulcie’s mum and dad are having breakfast downstairs and Dulcie races downstairs to tell her parents the terrible news. In a scene reminiscent of Not Now, Bernard by David McKee Dulcie’s parents greet this revelation with amused disbelief and kind teasing. This leaves Dulcie with no alternative but to remove the shark family all by herself. This is made more difficult by the sharks being extremely keen to eat Dulcie for their breakfast. Our heroine is not remotely fazed by this and has several bright ideas to get the better of them. These include delights such as the Happy-Wrappy-Uppie Game and my own personal favourite, the Spick-and-Spanny Game. Throughout all of this Dulcie's parents remain blissfully unaware of the mayhem taking place in their bathroom.

The story is great fun and is most definitely enhanced by Sarah McIntyre’s uniquely wonderful and vibrant illustrations. There is a larger than life look to the pictures and it feels as though the sharks are leaping off the pages towards the reader. There are stacks of detail on every page and I feel sure that a young child would want to go back and examine the pictures once the story is finished. I loved the humour shown in the little touches in the illustrations such as the baby shark with braces on his teeth, the little frog playing with the lipstick and the survival of Dulcie’s bunny slippers against the odds. There is also a lovely twist at the end and the final touch on the last page will amuse adults reading this book aloud. In fact, I think this book would be fabulous to read aloud as there is the opportunity to use a variety of voices for the different characters such as the rather debonair looking Mr Shark.

This is a picture book that makes you smile. Highly recommended. Thank you very much to the publishers for sending a copy of this book to the Bookbag.

This is the first picture book both written and illustrated by Sarah McIntyre however she has illustrated several picture books for other authors such as When Titus Took The Train by Anne Cottringer and Sarah McIntyre. For slightly older readers I would thoroughly recommend her collaboration with Philip Reeve, Oliver and the Seawigs. We think that you'll also like Dinosaur Police by Sarah McIntyreDinosaur Police and Jampires, both by Sarah McIntyre.

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You can read more book reviews or buy There's a Shark in the Bath by Sarah McIntyre at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy There's a Shark in the Bath by Sarah McIntyre at Amazon.com.

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