Megalodon: The Prehistoric Shark

Sandy Campbell is a reference librarian in the Science and Technology Library at the University of Alberta.

Megalodon is a book and activity kit. The book is small and comes
attached to a box containing a plastic scraper tool and a cast of a
prehistoric shark’s tooth embedded in a block of sand. Children will
have a great time scraping away the sand to reveal the shark’s tooth.
A certain messiness is inevitable; the instructions suggest laying down
lots of newspapers to catch flying debris. The kit should have included
safety goggles to prevent sand from getting in children’s eyes. In
fact, the children in the book are shown wearing safety glasses.

The accompanying text is at a reading level much higher than either the
age of the children pictured in the book or the age of children who
would be amused by uncovering a shark’s tooth in a block of sand. As a
result, the use of the text requires a considerable amount of parental
involvement. This is not a bad thing. Once the child has had the fun of
unearthing the tooth, the tooth and the book will have continued value
because of the solid scientific content. Because the kit can only be
used once, it is recommended as a home rather than a library purchase.