NDG book review: “Sharks Don’t Sink” is a book worth digging into

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Oh, those teeth!

Your finger almost bleeds just looking at them: three rows of perfect, razor-sharp white triangles that you know are going to hurt. You’re in a mouth designed to swallow you whole, that’s obvious, but when you think about it – are sharks really as bad as they seem? As you’ll see in Jasmin Graham’s new book, Sharks Don’t Sink, perhaps the problem isn’t the lack of teeth. When you examine them, perhaps it’s racism.

Growing up near the ocean near Myrtle Beach, Jasmin Graham fell in love with the water at an early age. She fell in love with the creatures there when she was ten years old and fishing with her father – something her ancestors had done for decades on the local piers.

She knew then that she wanted to become a “shark researcher.”

At the age of eighteen, she held a live shark in her hands for the first time, and that cemented her dream.

But not long after, Graham felt like she was “completely burned out.” She had been trying to make a difference in “a toxic, white, male-dominated environment that was rife with casual and overt sexism and racism,” and it was damaging her well-being. She was close to giving up when she found a few other black women who were also shark researchers and were going through the same thing. Graham received immediate support, and it changed her life.
Two weeks later, the new friends had decided to take action. They met a Miami investor who provided them with funding and helped them start Minorities in Shark Science (MISS), an organization that provides an introduction to shark research for young women from the BIPOC community. By that point, Graham had already decided to become a “rogue scientist” – one without academic backing, but whose research on sharks is essential to the field.

Sharks, Graham says, are not always the scary creatures Hollywood would have us believe. Yes, some sharks attack people, but others are sometimes “kind of silly” and some are “cute faces.” And there’s still a lot we don’t know about them.

Graham says: “So many questions. But that’s exactly where science begins: with questions.”
Alright, here it is: the STEM book to share with your young adult, a book that is neither stiff nor academic, but teaches you something genuinely interesting. Here: everything you wanted to know about all kinds of sharks, in simple terms that are friendly, thorough, smart, impressive, and easy to understand. Right here.

And if shark science hasn’t intrigued you enough, author Jasmin Graham uses “Sharks Don’t Sink” to draw analogies between freedom and prejudice, and between shark life and black life. It does so in the sweetest way possible, through Graham’s own story and that of her ancestors who have stood steadfastly and vehemently against racism and big business over the years. We also meet Graham’s father, a laid-back man who makes you want to sit on a quiet porch with a sweet cup of tea and a church fan. Ahhhhh.

Find this book for yourself, lend it to your 14-18 year old child, and be sure to ask if it will be returned. Sharks Don’t Sink is the kind of book you’ll want to take a double bite out of.