SuitabookThe Shark Caller
Zillah Bethell
- Reading
- Read alongside the child if grief or animal danger may feel intense. Pause after major revelations to discuss forgiveness, cultural difference and whether a tradition can change without dismissing its history.
- Themes
- Grief and forgiveness: Both girls carry significant losses and find it difficult to forgive others and themselves; their shared grief contributes to a deepening friendship. The story appears to treat grief as enduring and difficult, while making room for apology, forgiveness and continuing to live.
- Friendship across difference: Blue Wing and Maple initially dislike each other but gradually share stories, uncover secrets and appreciate each other’s traditions and lifestyles. The relationship is presented as developing through honesty, listening and recognition of difference rather than immediate harmony.
- Tradition, gender and sharks: Blue Wing wants to inherit shark-calling traditions but is refused because she is a girl; the story contrasts fear or hatred of sharks with another way of seeing them. The narrative appears to invite examination of inherited roles and changing attitudes, but the full resolution of these questions is not established.
- Worth knowing
- The girls’ losses are emotionally prominent, and the story includes a tragic shark attack, revenge, threats, dangerous ocean encounters and conflict around a tradition limited to men.