NDG Book Review: ‘Sharks Don’t Sink’ is a book worth biting into

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Oh, those teeth!

Your finger practically bleeds just looking at them: three rows of perfect, razor-sharp white triangles that you know are gonna hurt. They’re inside a mouth made for swallowing you whole, that’s obvious, but when you think about it – are sharks really as bad as they seem? As you’ll see in the new book “Sharks Don’t Sink” by Jasmin Graham, maybe dentism isn’t the problem. In studying them, maybe racism is.

Growing up near the ocean by Myrtle Beach, Jasmin Graham fell in love with the water early in her life. She fell in love with the creatures there when she was ten, with her father, fishing –something her forebears had done on local piers for decades.

She knew then that she wanted to be a “shark scientist.”

She was eighteen when she first held a live shark, and that cemented her dream.

Not long afterward, though, Graham felt like she “had burned out completely.” She’d been trying to make it in “a toxic, white, male-dominated… environment laced with… casual and overt sexism and racism…” and it was harming her well-being. She was about to quit when she found a few other Black women who were shark scientists, too, and who were going through the same thing. Graham received instant support and it was life-changing.
Two weeks later, the new friends had decided to mobilize. They met a Miami investor who lent resources and who helped them found Minorities in Shark Science (MISS), an organization that gives BIPOC young women an introduction to shark science. By then, Graham had decided to become a “rogue scientist” – one without academic backing, but whose research on sharks is essential in the field.

Sharks, says Graham, are not always the fearsome creatures that Hollywood wants us to believe. Yes, some sharks attack humans, but others are “kinda silly” sometimes, and some are “cutie-pies.” And there’s still a lot we don’t know about them.

Says Graham, “So many questions. But that’s where science begins: with questions.”
Alright, here it is: the STEM book you can share with your young adult, a book that’s not stuffy or academic but that’ll teach you something truly interesting. Here: all the things you wanted to know about all kinds of sharks, in plain words that are friendly, thorough, smart, awed, and easy-to-understand. Right here.

And if the shark science doesn’t fascinate you enough, author Jasmin Graham uses “Sharks Don’t Sink” to draw analogies between freedom and bias and between shark lives and Black lives. That’s done in the sweetest of ways, through Graham’s own story and that of her ancestors who steadfastly, fiercely stood up to racism and big business through the years. We also meet Graham’s father, an easy-going man who makes you want to sit on a quiet front porch with some sweet tea and a church fan. Ahhhhh.

Find this book for yourself, loan it to your 14-to-18-year-old, and be sure to ask for it back. “Sharks Don’t Sink” is the kind of book you’ll want to bite into twice.