Shadow of the Shark

Mary Pope Osborne's Shadow of the Shark is a Magic Tree House adventure for 7 year olds that starts as a holiday and stops being one very fast.

What happens

Jack and Annie find a note from Teddy and ride out to the Frog Creek woods. The tree house is back. This time Morgan and Merlin aren't sending them on a mission, they're sending them on a thank you. A holiday, anywhere they like.

They choose Cozumel, because friends went snorkelling there and said it was incredible. Teddy hands over a travel guide and three gold coins, each good for one wish, on the single condition that the magic is only ever used for fun. (They get through the first one before the afternoon is out.)

The reef is the loveliest part of the book. Fish as colourful as jelly beans. Green turtles feeding on algae. Tiny yellow sea horses bobbing beside the coral, and a school of little white fish that swims over Jack and tickles him like feathers.

Then the raft drifts further out, Jack looks behind him, and there's a fin.

One thing to know before you hand it over. The shark chapter is properly frightening. The fin circles the raft, Jack screams at Annie to get on board or die, and then the shark's head comes over the side with its mouth open and takes the paddle in its teeth. It's over quickly and the escape is a good one. Still, a seven-year-old who is already wary of deep water will feel every second of it.

For a shark-mad child, though, isn't that exactly why they'd pick it up?

It sits a long way into the series, so Camelot, Merlin, Morgan and Teddy all turn up without introduction. Your reader will manage.

The real facts are a nice bonus. Coral is made of animals and not plants. It grows very slowly, so you look and don't touch, and you keep your flippers to yourself. Jack reads it out of the guidebook and then swims through it, which beats being told.

What to read next

If it's the sharks your reader wants and not the fright, try Stink and the Shark Sleepover. Stink's family win a night at the aquarium, and there's a sea-creature scavenger hunt, a jellyfish light show and a tank of sand tiger sharks to bed down beside.