How to Avoid Being Eaten by Sharks and Other Advice by John Larkin

Title: How to Avoid Being Eaten by Sharks and Other Advice

Author: John Larkin

Genre: Humour

Publisher: Walker Books

Published: 1^st February 2024

Format: Paperback

Pages: 160

Price: $16.99

Synopsis: A collection of hilarious, nonsensical, witty and mischievous subjects – the best (and worst) advice for growing up.

There is one sure-fire method to avoid being eaten by sharks. Don’t go in the ocean.

How can you avoid being eaten by sharks? What does it mean to ‘skateboard’ someone? Is there a chance you could be abducted by aliens? Are there zombies hiding under your brother’s bed?

In this hilarious guide, John Larkin relates his tried and tested advice for navigating the mysteries of life, with a sprinkling of some the facts and history he’s discovered along the way. Accompanied by entertaining comic-style illustrations from Chrissie Krebs, this is an education not to be missed!

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Have you ever wondered how to avoid being eaten by sharks, or the countries this is less likely to happen? (Hint: they’re all landlocked or double landlocked countries). What would you do if you were going to be abducted by aliens, or if you found out there was a zombie was living under your brother’s bed? Do you want to pass on secret messages without invoking Donald Trump’s name? Well, John Larkin has the answer – his latest book is full of handy hints, advice, knowledge and trivia across a range of subjects that kids are going to come across or have questions about.

The facts of life, mysteries and historical facts combine in this book to create a funny guide to life for readers of all ages. Delivering the facts like this ensure that kids will engage with the history and information presented here, as often putting the facts into something entertaining can help people remember them or engage with the book, and be able to remember interesting things. John also uses his own stories from his life, as he says, as ways to illustrate his advice – and many of them are quite exaggerated. This works well though as this sort of thing can be appealing to younger readers, and has a similar feel to the stories as Round the Twist and other stories by Paul Jennings. I quite like these stories even as an adult because Australian stories have often had a quirky feel to them, something that I think is at times uniquely Australian, especially in terms of the language and references. Books like this show that these quirky stories and books work well, and that they will have something for everyone.

Another aspect of this book I enjoyed was that it felt like a book that readers of any age from eight and over could enjoy. There’s something that any reader can appreciate, layers that speak to readers at different levels and different ages, as well as a range of different interests – animals, biology, writing, science and history are all sprinkled throughout the book. John makes these facts entertaining by speaking directly to the reader and involving them in the story. This ensures that readers remain engaged as they read the book and are entertained and informed at the same time. This made this book a success for me, as it was filled with fun facts and a lot of interest for readers who are looking for something a little bit different, that combines fact and fiction in a way that shows kids and readers how they can combine fact, history and fun to create an exciting book that will be very entertaining.