June 23, 2025
People often ask me, Elspeth, when will Kate Beaton get her foot off our necks (sidenote: no one has ever asked me this)? And the answer is, I don’t know. I read Hark! A Vagrant! many years ago and wondered where Kate had been my whole life. Her words are funny. Her illustrations are funny. Her characters are funny. Don’t get me started on The Princess and the Pony. That Pony is so cuddly and cute you want to leap into the pages and kiss it. Kiss it right between its eyes that face different directions. So here we are yet again. Kate is stepping on our necks with Shark Girl.
Shark Girl is half shark, half girl, and doesn’t have any problems. Until she gets caught in a mean captain’s fishing net. After escaping, Shark Girl experiences a very human feeling. The feeling of REVENGE. Shark Girl heads over to the sea witch’s house to get a pair of legs and joins the fishing crew with mutiny in her heart. Even though she is a little different than the crew, they grow to love and accept her. But her heart remains set on destroying the captain. SPOILER! The crew totally mutinies and she gets revenge and the crew gets rid of the captain and also Shark Girl bites him and he tastes bad and also the crew is like, we have got to stop overfishing it is NOT COOL and Shark Girl heads back into the water and doesn’t have any more problems.
Bits and Pieces: I loved Shark Girl because I am sick of stories where people don’t get their comeuppance. As someone who adores mutiny and revenge, this story spoke to me. If you are a bad person… you should get bitten. Or thrown overboard. Or be the person who has to explain to parents that their child isn’t the most special sunflower to the detriment of other children (they won’t believe you), or be the person who has to cook dinner every night. That’s my new policy. The art for this book was rendered on Procreate and featured blue heavily so you get a nice ocean feeling throughout.
Not Sure About: I think there could have been more funny scenes depicting the difference between a shark girl’s habits and a human’s habits.
Favorite Part: I liked when Shark Girl was vibing with the Sea Witch and they were both plotting and the Sea Witch was like, by the way I love drama. Me too, girl. Me too.
