Strike of the Shark by Bear Grylls Review
Reviewed by Sandra McGhee
After watching almost every episode of Bear Grylls Born Survivor TV shows my 13 year old son was eagerly excited to receive a copy of Strike of the Shark by Bear Grylls to review. The book is a hardback cover with a very colourful striking photographic picture displaying the lead character Beck Granger along with the same size shark and what’s quite good is there’s a small snapshot of Bear Grylls himself taken by the looks of out at sea on one of his travels/adventures exploring in the top left corner of the cover. The font size of the book isn’t too small, so makes reading more comfortable for the recommend age range of 9 upwards. The book consists of 295 pages with 41 chapters in total. The first 2 pages gave a description of the characters and then followed a World Map displaying the main places of Bear Gryll’s explorations. Strike of the Shark’s location is set in the Caribbean Sea where there’s the highest danger of Tiger sharks, dehydration and hurricanes. The main character, Beck, is ship-wrecked in the open seas and needs all of his survival skills to save a small group of passengers. The book tells the story of Beck Granger growing up and what he has been through and his adventures including lots of tips and tricks for survival and how he escapes the world’s most deadliest places. There’s lots of real life survival used in this book and the adventures are very believable, it’s very easy to consider yourself as one of the characters. What was extra special for Charlie was the reference to Bermuda and the Bermuda Triangle as he has heard his Dad tell stories of when he once travelled there a couple of decades ago which made it seem even more real to picture the scenes and mysterious disappearances at sea!
But the sinking was no accident and in order to stay alive, he’ll have to work out who wants him dead, and why? That is, if the sharks don’t get him first! However Beck’s experiences with sharks hadn’t been all bad, he recalls scuba-diving with them in the Red Sea and had happy memories of when they weren’t trying to eat you that they were amazing creatures and lithe and graceful. Beck’s job was to keep an eye on the sharks and spot the ones likely to turn nasty. Does he survive, is he in too deep, a must read!
When Charlie first picked this book up quite soon after it arrived in the post on the Saturday, it was obvious he was instantly engaged in the excitement and adventure and literally didn’t put the book down for an hour and read at every opportunity. So from experience the story was very engaging and believable and he discovers Beck ship wreck was no accident.
There are 6 books in the series and this was the first one Charlie read, however I will most definitely buy the rest of the collection for him to read as I know he will share the books with his 9 year old sister who has heard him talk about the book and also thought he had gone out when reading as was so engrossed, so would recommend for both boys and girls. Even though this is make believe the survival tips are real, so actually educational especially for any young scout who loves the outdoors adventure but I’m sure any children who like the outside and exploring would welcome receiving this book or any in the collection. Charlie is keen on the Sands of Scorpion where Beck has the task of escaping the gang of diamond smugglers, all of the books look exciting adventures.
Worth every penny. Recommend.
Rating: 4.5/5
RRP: £9.99 (hardback), £6.99 (paperback), £4.99 (Kindle)
Available to buy from Amazon here.
