Never Take a Shark to the Dentist (And Other Things Not to Do)

Barrett, Judi, and John Nickle. Never Take a Shark to the Dentist. London: Simon and Schuster, 2008. Print.

In Judi Barrett’s Never Take a Shark to the Dentist (And Other Things Not to Do) the reader is invited to journey into the world animals and humorously observe what you should never to with them.  Examples such as, “Never hold hands with a lobster” and “Never go to the bank with a raccoon” honestly made me chuckle and enjoy the light-hearted simplicity of putting human traits on animals and then putting them in everyday situations. 

The illustrations are what made it particularly funny for me.  Seeing a rhinoceros in a blue dress, a pearl necklace and red painted nails was hilarious or a giraffe in the movie theatre with an extra long sippy straw genuinely brought a smile to my face.  The illustrations used what looked like acrylic paint to describe the simple “Don’t ever…” sentence on the left side of the page.  The illustrations were lifelike with little artistic embellishment outside of the humanistic traits—it was clearly visible what was being described. 

While reading through the text I couldn’t help but notice how the silliness of the examples really enhanced the characterization.  The expressions on an anteater when the porcupine he sat next to on the subway left him with needles stuck in his side was priceless.  The characters are playful receivers of the unfortunate traits of their animal buddies.  In a way, I think this contributed to the larger plot theme that we all aren’t perfect and sometimes our lesser qualities annoy others but deep down we’re all good natured beings (humans or animals or, well human-like animals in this case).  We are who we are and those differences help, in this case, playfully define us. 

Evaluating the text, I need to do so with a grain of salt.  This is a silly book, not intended to discover the meaning of life.  However, it has plenty of merits, especially in the “problems” the characters face.  The problems are simple and often a lost cause, which creates the humor and lightheartedness.  These problems are never really overcome, they are dealt with and tolerated on each page.  This is acceptable though since the story isn’t linear but instead individualized examples that contribute to the larger humor theme.  The animals characters clearly have emotions as evidenced by the illustrations.  They are simply defined by their appearances and the environment or prop that they are interacting with.  Most of the weaknesses are on full display, but they are accepted and embraced (at different levels) by the other animals.

I believe this text would really inspire the readers to make their writing come alive and welcome it to be wacky and upbeat.  The fact that students can create their own example of what animal show never do is a clear cut motivator to make it their own.

Throughout the text I didn’t see any stereotypes since their weren’t any humans, however certain traits that apply to an animal were shown.  This is a stretch and not the authors intended message. 

I particularly enjoyed the use of point of view on each page, with the animal and cooperating animals trying to relate to what is happening.  A great example of this is the pig eating its lunch. From the pig’s point of view he is too immersed in his lunch to care about anything else.  However, the other animals in the lunchroom are shocked, have stopped eating the lunches and are watching the “entertainment”.  Almost every page has at least two point of views present. 

The setting of the animals was unique and new for each page.  I enjoyed how this was something fresh for the reader to examine.  In the span of several pages you were transported from a movie theatre to a picnic to a dentists' office and then subway.  These changes I believe keep the reader interested even though the concept remains the same throughout the text.   

The style of the book, while extremely simple, is effective in having children examine the plight of the animal and in some cases the animals on the receiving end of their unique traits.  Each page acts as a vignette to the style of silliness and acceptance to someone’s identity. 

The readability in this book is easy with one sentence per page, word enhancement (“Never” being bolded), no more than ten words per page and a repititious style.  Any child would be able to understand the consistent and simple way the book is presented.  Based on these observations, the audience for this book is early elementary boys and girls.  Since animals are loved by most boys and girls, it is a great gender “overlap” book that celebrates silliness.  Since the pictures openly describe what is being read, it would be an effective text for beginning readers, struggling readers and english language learners. 

A great idea for a mini lesson associated with the book would be to have students come up with several examples of “Never…..” with the traits of their chosen animal.  They can list as many as they want and have to draw one.  When they draw one of their examples they cannot write what they are visually explaining.  The class will have to guess what their intended “Never….” Message is.  This will help the classroom better interpret pictures and incorporate text to them.