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Reviewed by: Taylor Coonelly, Elementary School Librarian Title: Orcas Attack
Author: Marie-Therese Miller
Illustrator:
Publisher: Northstar
Year: 2024 Good for Grades: 6-9 Genre/Type of Book: Animal
Content Warnings, or things that other School Librarians should be aware of: N/A Recommended for a school library: No Reason(s) for choosing the book:
Nominated for the CYBILS award for Elementary/Middle Grade Fiction
If you were tasked by the publisher with writing a short quote for the back cover of this book, what would it be:
A look at the beautiful yet dangerous creatures of the ocean.
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Review:
A look at the beautiful yet dangerous creatures of the ocean.
This book is part of a larger series focusing on how animals and humans have coexisted throughout history, and sometimes done so in not-so-peaceful ways. This text features the orca whale, also known as the killer whale, a large ocean mammal that hunts other sea creatures and often steer clear from humans. But as both humans and orca's share the water and hunt for fish, sometimes the two creatures come into contact with one another in dangerous ways. In the North Pacific, both orcas and humans hunt for salmon, and while orca's have learned to steal fish from human nets, this harm's humans ability to catch and orca's can become trapped or injured due to fishing equipment. This book also features instances where humans have kept orca's in captivity for entertainment. This leads orcas, who are social creatures by nature, to become aggressive towards themselves and their human caretakers (like the case of Shamu in SeaWorld or Tilikum). Human boating activities have also caused injuries or death to pods of orcas swimming in areas of the world.
I thought that this book was fine. It is incredibly reminiscent of a boring/stereotypical nonfiction book that have good information but are not engaging or exciting for middle grade readers. The information in the book was good, and I liked the inclusion of real pictures in each chapter highlighting different parts of the text, as well as the map in the back of the book and glossary. This book is a quintessential nonfiction book that might appeal to students specifically interested in ocean mammals, but isn't as engaging and creative as other nonfiction titles. I wouldn't recommend this for a middle grade library, because I think it would have low circulation or none at all.
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