How to Avoid Being Eaten By Sharks … and other advice

John Larkin

Chrissie Krebs

Walker Books, 2024

160pp., pbk., RRP $A16.99

9781760657451

There is one absolute sure-fire method to avoid being eaten by sharks. Don’t go in the ocean. When you enter the ocean, you are in the shark’s domain. If a shark plonked itself down next to you on your sofa and started eating your Twisties, then it would be in yours.

If young male readers, particularly, take one piece of advice this year, then this would probably be it.  But there is lots of other important information that everyone should know in this book, and all of it presented in an hilarious way that is going to engage even the most reluctant reader.  Much like those crazy books of fascinating facts that present the most obscure information in a way that makes the reader wonder how they didn’t know it already when clearly they should have, this delves into the realms of whether the Earth really flat, translating parent speak, the tricks of passing  a creative writing test, and , importantly, how to avoid being abducted by aliens.

Drawing on his own childhood, Larkin offers the young reader wisdom they didn’t know they needed, complete with facts, figures, hints and other trivia, which all work together in an engaging narrative style augmented by lots of carefree illustrations to lighten the mood. Each chapter is quite random in its focus but nevertheless the whole comes together in one of those books that everyone will feel they have a need to read. And if it gets those not-so-keen readers started and looking for others in a similar vein, then it has done its job and been worth the price of admission.