Book talk: Sharkopedia: The Complete Guide to Everything Shark

Sharks are awesome and are often misunderstood. Time for a true/false quiz to see how well you know your sharks.

Question 1: Bullhead sharks are known for their sluggishness/laziness during the day.
Answer: True [page 142]. They are slow and tend to stay in one place. They like shallow waters.

Question 2: Sharks bite surfers because from underwater, surfboards look like sea lions or seals or sea turtles, and those are some of sharks' favorite foods (for some shark species).
Answer: True. [Page 179]

Question 3: Sharks have only been on this planet for the last 5,000 years, so they're sort of a new animal.
Answer: False [page 54]. Sharks -- as they look now -- have been around for the last 120 million years, and prehistoric sharks existed 400 million years ago!

Question 4: There are nearly 500 kinds of sharks in the world, and of these, only about a dozen are responsible for a few unprovoked bites.
Answer: True. [Page 172].

Question 5: Nurse sharks are all white and have a little nurse-hat-shaped head.
Answer: Hahaha! False! You fell for that one? They look nothing like a nurse: [show page 36 to the kids].

If you want more cool information and photos about sharks, I highly recommend Sharkopedia: The Complete Guide to Everything Shark.

Booktalk to intermediate grades, middle school.