Sharky Marky Books

Sharky Marky and the Big Race (Book1)

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• Written by : Lance Olsen Illustrated by : Thomas Perry 
• Publisher: Olsen Images LLC; 1 edition (September 30, 2014)
• Reviewed copy: PDF * version provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
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See more from Missus B below...
This is a fun and energetic book with vibrant colours and plenty of action.

It involves an underwater race between Sharky Marky and other characters including 'Octo Eddy', 'Peter Puffer' and 'Meanie Marlin.'
Speeding off in their brightly coloured racing cars, we hope that Sharky Marky can stay in the lead, but unfortunately for him, there's some cheating and nasty tactics going on.....

Meanie Marlin uses his spear-like nose to puncture Marky's tyres while Octo Eddie laughs and sticks out his tongue.
Zoom to the next page and we see that poor Marky is blinded by octopus ink.....

Dodgy exhaust pipe? Potent Poots? Either way- poor Marky is blinded by the blue!
(this image is a screengrab) 

Marky doesn't panic though, he decides to get help with his thudding, flat tyres and Stuckey Star Fish is the man for the job.  By now though, he is last in the race and he has seconds to get to the finish line. He needs to overtake the other characters and at this point in the book, readers are encouraged to count down from 10 to 1, to help Marky along.

Could Peter Puffer breeze on by to the finish line? Poor Marky looks panicked. 

Marky needs to zip past a killer whale, a sting ray, a sea horse and a walrus ...until at last, he makes it to the finish line. 

Marky's the winner! He won by a nose!
He wins the big trophy and strikes a great pose!

More from Missus B:
Sharky Marky and The Big Race is a fun and zippy ,rhyming book, although at times the rhythm feels a tad uneven.There are amusing words such as 'stink' and 'goo' along with nice phrases, like when Marky needs to  'keep his wits' , or when 'things truly look dire.' 

The count-down pages are fun and will be particularly enjoyed by a group of children, although, grammatically, I find it uncomfortable to say 'real loud' and I would rather say 'really loud.' 

Winning, losing, cheating, playing fair, helping others...the book offers plenty of opportunities for discussion about social behaviour. 

The underwater creatures are cute & comical and the book includes some colouring-in pages.

Sharky Marky and The Scavenger Hunt
(An Alphabetic Adventure)
Olsen Images 2015

In Book 2 Marky and the gang are off on an alphabetic scavenger hunt. It's a race of a different kind- the characters each have a list of items that must be gathered. 

The story unfolds alphabetically- each page has an object starting with a new letter- e.g.
Algae, Barnacle, Clam....
There are other ocean related items like the Oyster, Pearl and the Urchin.
The  competing characters hunt for objects including a Frisbee, an old Shoe and a Yo-Yo, all of which are likely items we could find on an ocean's bed.
There's also some unexpected things like a Guitar, some Hammers, a Vase and a Tie.

Octo-Eddy still hasn't learnt to play fair!

A confusing element within the characters is their mix- mostly they are sea creatures, however there's also a beaver and some ducks in the story. They are wearing oxygen tanks though, which will no doubt, raise questions and lead to a discussion about land animals and sea animals.

Fans of book 1 above will enjoy seeing these familiar characters again, while learning the alphabet through a racy rhythm!

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*As of March 2016, I am no longer writing reviews based on PDF's or e-books. Please read my Policy Page, thanks.