Sharks: What Do Great Whites, Hammerheads, and Whale Sharks Get Up To All Day?

A Day in the Life

by Carlee Jackson, Chaaya Prabhat (Illustrations)

Set over a 24-hour period, meet deadly tiger sharks, baby lemon sharks, and gigantic basking sharks in this kids’ nonfiction book about the predators in the ocean.

Dive under the sea to follow the lives of individual sharks as they hunt, hide, and play their way through their day. Marine biologist and shark conservationist Carlee Jackson weaves the story from gargantuan whale sharks to tiny epaulette sharks (who hunt in rock pools!). Witness incredible moments including:

• A great white shark escaping a pod of orcas
• A giant hammerhead hunting stingrays
• A nurse shark asleep in a coral reef

Genres: Picture Books, Animals, Nature, Nonfiction, Science

48 pages, Hardcover

Published June 7, 2022

About the author

At six years old, Carlee Jackson read her first book on sharks and fell in love. ​​Today, she is a marine biologist, environmental educator, and science communicator. Carlee researches how human activities affect shark behavior, and also helps protect sea turtle nests along Florida’s beaches. Carlee is co-founder and Director of Communications for Minorities in Shark Sciences (MISS), an organization promoting diversity and inclusivity in shark sciences. She is passionate about marine biology and loves everything about the ocean!

Reviews

[SamuelFri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun, adorable, and beautifully illustrated little book. Perfect for reading to your girlfriend who cannot sleep, and loves sharks.. or, you know, if you have kids, I’m sure they’d love it too.

[Gloria · Rating 5 out of 5]

5⭐️ 10/10 one of the best books ever for the below reasons:

1) author AND illustrator of colour (I believe black and brown respectively?)

2) GORGEOUS illustrations and colour work

3) actually learnt a lot of new facts 😂

Bonus point, a lot of the sharks were girls and I fucking loved it, give me all that girl power.

Best use of my afternoon and perusal of Waterstones childrens section during double stamps weekend 😍

[Haley Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is beautiful. I was entranced and learned SO MUCH, I can't even imagine the joy an 8 year old who actually is passionate about sharks would experience while reading.

(TBH IDK if there's a big enough text to image ratio for for to count this on my "read" for the year, as I have bizarre self prescribed rules against including picture books but I learned so much! so there!)

[Guiri de Las Montañas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of super interesting facts and gorgeous illustrations!

[lindsloveslit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dive under the sea to follow the lives of individual sharks as they hunt, hide, and play their way through their day. Marine biologist and shark conservationist Carlee Jackson cleverly weaves the story from gargantuan whale sharks to tiny epaulette sharks (who hunt in rock pools!) in the style of a nature documentary.

Beautifully illustrated by Chaaya Prabhat and packed with animal facts, Sharks (A Day in the Life) encourages kids to look at sharks in a new light—not just fearsome hunters but endangered animals who play a key role in the ocean’s ecosystem.

Set over a 24-hour period, meet deadly tiger sharks, baby lemon sharks, and gigantic basking sharks in this kids’ nonfiction book about the coolest predators in the ocean.

• A great white shark escaping a pod of orcas

• A nurse shark asleep in a coral reef

• A giant hammerhead hunting stingrays

[A Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carlee Jackson is a marine biologist and the author of this book, which is pretty awesome! This book is unique in that it is told chronologically over the course of a day; from 8AM to 11PM, readers learn what different species of sharks around the world are doing every hour. The book includes the sharks sleeping, eating, giving birth, and being tagged by marine biologists. The book also talks about shark teeth, shark habitats, and shark skin. The book is illustrated instead of having photos. I think there is a typo on the 10AM page. Overall, I would rent this title from the local library during shark week and/or have it available to readers the week of our shark lesson plan, but I would not buy it.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because this book introduces many kinds of sharks and has a middle grade reading level, it will not appeal to students writing animal reports about a specific species.
Readers who are interested in learning about sharks in general may find this presentation interesting.
The author has organized the information by times of the day, explaining what a certain kind of shark may be doing at that time.

[Danielle Robertson Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book! it was a great intro to different sharks and the Day in the Life made it really easy to latch onto their differences. This strategy made learning about them and their different teeth and habits really fun and easy. I also really liked the artwork. It helped emphasize the part I was learning.

[L.A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. My 3-year-old kept wanting to pickup wherever we’d left off, so it was interesting! Covering a shark’s “day” wasn’t really conveyed in a meaningful way. But the descriptions and illustrations were nice, and a variety of sharks mentioned.

[rue ⋆˚꩜｡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

currently hyperfixating on sharks-- this book made me happy (:

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

My kids and I enjoyed reading and learning about different sharks. We really liked the hour format and the illustrations were fantastic!

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy little audiobook.

[elstaffe]

Learned about the basking shark and the bonnet head shark (in addition to eating up the killer illustrations)

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The illustrations from Chaaya Prabhat are gorgeously drawn, illuminating the various seascapes that the sharks live in from the deep waters to the Bahamas and Cape of South Africa-- I don't think the book would be half as fabulous if the illustrations didn't hold up their end and these go above and beyond.

Then, you have the writing of Carlee Jackson, sharing how sharks contain multitudes and the narrative has voice and spunk to demonstrate the range of sharks and their fascinating ways, structure, and hunting habits from filter feeders to the spear-shaped teeth to snag a seal. None of the words are overwhelming on the pages and it's easy to follow the story but also the additional text features when there are some.

I want to check out more of these if they're done as well as this one!