Julia and the Shark

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Concerten waren al niet meer toegestaan op het eiland, maar nu worden ook muziekinstrumenten verboden! Whilst Julia’s Dad is there for work, her marine biologist Mum is there for another reason – she wants to study the elusive Greenland shark, said to live in the waters nearby.

Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed.

Her debut YA novel The Deathless Girls was published in 2019, and was shortlisted for the YA Book Prize, and long listed for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. One of the best middle grade books I've read that deals with real issues, and I knew Kiran Millwood Hargrave had the talent to pull off such a huge feat.

Julia has followed her mum and dad to live on a remote island for the summer - her dad, for work; her mother, on a determined mission to find the elusive Greenland shark. Ten-year-old Julia has followed her parents to a remote lighthouse for the summer; her dad for work, and her marine-biologist mother on a determined mission to find the elusive Greenland shark. When Julia decides to save her family, she embarks on a journey through darkness and hope to find her mother again.The potent illustrations, rendered starkly in black, white, and yellow, put it in a class by itself. Julia is no annoyingly precocious child narrator, just a believable one who shows us her struggling family and the love and magic that get them through. Her second novel The Island at the End of Everythingwas released in April 2017, and was shortlisted for both the Costa Book Award and Blue Peter Children’s Book Award. Furthermore, Tom de Freston's illustrations perfectly capture the atmosphere of the story and writing style. Even as her father tries to reassure Julia that it is just a phase, she senses her mother’s withdrawal and thinks that if she can find the shark by herself, her mother will get better.

Julia, a ten year-old girl, and her scientist mother, Maura, mathsy dad, Dan, and cat Noodle have upped sticks from their home in Cornwall to live on the remote island of Unst, 1,000 miles away. Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied. In het koude, afgelegen Borealis wachten honderdtachtig kinderen van over de hele wereld op hun lot, bewaakt door de Crew en beheerst door de Trias. I will say one thing and that is that it was a deep pleasure to read a children's book with a loving and compassionate father. Jeden z moich ulubionych plot-twistów ma miejsce wtedy, gdy grupa docelowa książki zmienia się na moich oczach.However (and no, I am actually not all that sorry either), I personally just have not really enjoyed Julia and the Shark all that much or rather I should say that I have been unable to in particular appreciate the combination of Kiran Millwood Hargrave's text and Tom de Freston's accompanying images for one major and all encompassing reason. This was so beautiful from the writing to the story to the pictures (drawn by the authors husband btw, what a duo! It's clear early on that Julia's fun, energetic scientist mother with an obsession with finding a shark is actually mentally ill, and I correctly guessed bipolar early on. With mesmerising black and yellow illustrations and presented as a deluxe hardback with tracing paper inserts, this is a perfect gift for 9+ fans of David Almond and Frances Hardinge.