Tough, Toothy Baby Sharks by: Sandra Markle (Nonfiction)

Baby sharks are called pups and their skeletons are made of cartilage instead of bone.  The fertilization in reproduction occurs inside the female shark’s body, which is different from other fish.  A shark’s scales are called denticles and they routinely shed and replace them.  Shark pups use their tails to move schools of fish and herring closer together so that it is easier to catch and eat them.  Sometimes the shark pups eat their smaller siblings inside the female mother shark, so only the biggest and strongest pups survive.  Sharks can give birth to a small number of two pups at a time or can sometimes give birth to forty pups or more.  The shark pups look for food in deeper waters at night so they will not be caught and eaten by larger sharks.  

I would use this book in the classroom by teaching the students how to create the best graphic organizer for this particular nonfiction book.  We would explore the different methods of creating a graphic organizer to help us gather and organize our information for nonfiction texts.  I would ask the students to determine whether the book is a description, sequence, comparison, cause and effect, or problem solution nonfiction book.  I would show them each of the styles of graphic organizers and ask them to choose the appropriate one to use for keeping notes of important facts.  The students would learn the difference between the various types of nonfiction texts and would be able to determine which graphic organizer would fit best for any nonfiction text. 

AR Book Finder Book Level 5.8