Stalking the Great White: The Great White Shark Scientist by Sy Montgomery

"If a shark comes in the cage," said Erick--and this really got our attention--"stay away from the mouth and teeth."

And then, everyone's attention focuses to our right. Perhaps a hundred feet away, something is happening. It seems that in an instant, the ocean itself gathers into the shape of a shark. The water has been made flesh and is swimming toward us. We can see from the claspers that this is a male.

I remember reading Richard Ellis's account of an experience in a shark cage. "If there is one thing burned into your mind it is the image of white teeth in a gaping mouth large enough to swallow a child."

But our shark's mouth is not gaping. He seems to be smiling. His skin is blindingly bright: gleaming silver, like a knight in white satin. He moves through the water effortlessly, a combination of controlled power and balletic grace. I have never seen anyone so elegant. I feel no fear. Held in the embrace of the blue, clear sea, mesmerized by the shark's fluid beauty, I experience only an overwhelming sense of tranquility.

Shark scientists never forget such moments, but their work is not always so spectacular. In Sy Montgomery's latest in the outstanding Scientists in the Field series, The Great White Shark Scientist (Scientists in the Field Series), we follow marine biologist Greg Skomal at work in two areas, the shallows off Cape Cod in Massachusetts in summer and Guadalupe Island, off the west coast of Mexico in winter, as they seek out the Great White, not as sport but as serious scientists trying to document the numbers, habits, and life cycle of this illusive big fish. After the scary success of the movie "Jaws!" great whites were deemed man-eaters and hunted down in the summer waters around the Cape, with, as usual, unforeseen consequences. Seals gradually became became common visitors in the area, filling up beaches, and gobbling up the sport fish that thousands of fishermen flock to the Cape to catch. It seems without the sharks, seals swarm the area and get the bulk of the haul, with further damage to the local ecology--and economy.

Enter the shark scientist Greg Skomal and his staff, who spend the warm summer days in the pedestrian work of shark counting, shark tagging, and shark identification. Atlantic great whites migrate up and down the North American east coastline, with occasional "holiday" jaunts eastward to the Caribbean Islands, (or even mid-Atlantic) but scientists currently have no idea where they mate or give live birth to their pups, and Skomal has the tantalizing theory that perhaps the coast off Massachusetts may be that place.

Summer shark trackers work with aircraft spotters who can see the sharks better from on high, and in their fast boats the shark scientists hone in on each one. With GoPro cameras and sonar, they attempt to discover if they recognize an old friend, a tagged shark whose implanted device "pings" its location as it journeys from the tropics to the North Atlantic each year. If a new, untagged shark is spotted, it is the job of Greg and his crew catch them near enough to the surface to tag them with a long gig pole. At times, the crew has to get up close and personal with smaller sharks, holding them by hand to implant the tags. From long hours spent in the hazardous and shallows around the Cape emerges the data which they crunch to track the elusive big sharks on their yearly voyages.

But when the Cape Cod shark season ends, the shark scientists turn to the tropical waters off Central America and Mexico where other great whites winter, and in those crystal clear waters they get to observe and record their favorite big fish close up from submerged shark cages--the real fun of being a shark-loving marine biologist. And out of their groundbreaking studies has come a new way of looking at the great white shark.

"It was calming and humbling," said one young student. "Having seen them, my yearning to protect them has definitely grown, Now I would absolutely loved to see them thriving."

Winner of the American Library Association's Siebert Award for excellence in nonfiction for young people, Sy Montgomery's The Great White Shark Scientist (Scientists in the Field Series) tells it like is when it comes to doing marine biology and shows that intimidating animal as one important link in the life cycle of the seas.

It's not all heart-thumping encounters with those giant raptors of the seas; a lot of it, as in any science, is dogged documentation of data, combined with the necessary ability to see the big picture and retain a passion for what they do, and the author catches that quality well. Keith Ellenbogen adds stunning color photographs to each page, and Montgomery does her usual solid job of providing substantiating backmatter--maps, bibliography, web resources, and an index which indicates related illustrations. A must-have for libraries and great white shark fans.

Much Ado about "Nothing:" The Hole Story of the Doughnut by Pat Miller

Few remember the master mariner Hanson Crockett Gregory.

But the pastry he invented more than 166 years ago is eaten daily by doughnut lovers everywhere.

Born in Rockport, Maine, little Hanson succumbed to the romance of the sea at age thirteen to become a cabin boy on the schooner Isaac Achorn. A cabin boy is at the bottom of the ladder for able-bodied seaman, so he did all kinds of jobs. Young and nimble, he was sent aloft into the rigging to manage the sails.

But one less glamorous job was helping the cook, and Hanson had to get up very early to help brew the coffee and make dozens and dozens of fry cakes for the crew's breakfast. The cakes were flattened lumps of yeasty dough, fried in a kettle of boiling oil.

The hard-working crew awoke hungry and scarfed them down, but they did grumble about one problem. The round, browned lumps they called "dough nuts," were crispy and tasty on the outside, but sometimes the middles were left uncooked. But to get the centers done, the fry cakes had to be overcooked and emerged hard and soaked with oil.

Sailors called those "Sinkers."

They joked that if they fell overboard with a stomach full of the those greasy fry cakes, they would sink like a stone.

But Hanson Gregory was a bright lad, and one morning he had his Eureka moment. He unscrewed the lid from a pepper canister and used it to cut out the centers of the fry cakes before they hit the kettle, a technique which eliminated the raw center and also expedited the cooking process considerably.

The cook had never seen such a downright fool thing. Neither had the sailors who showed up for breakfast. The cakes were brown, and sweet, and... fully cooked!

And the rest is, as we say, history. When Hanson returned for liberty in Rockport, he shared his recipe for the holey dough nut with his mother, who opened a shop on the dock to sell Hanson's "holey cakes," which, um, sold like hot cakes. A new American food was launched.

Pat Miller's forthcoming The Hole Story of the Doughnut (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016) relates both the true story and and the folklore that grew up around that round foodstuff so well suited for hungry sailors with little time to linger over breakfast. Perfectly designed to be held in the human hand, doughnuts have circumnavigated the globe since Hanson went to sea in 1844. Miller cheerily relates the apocryphal story that Captain Hanson invented the holey doughnut while at the wheel of his clipper ship during a raging storm by impaling a fry cake on one of the spokes whenever he needed both his hands to steer, a story which would make the good captain one of the world's early multitaskers. Captain Hanson retired from the sea at age 36 to become a mining engineer and was buried, appropriately enough, in Snug Harbor, Massachusetts, justly honored as the creator of the already famed food, As he himself wryly put it in a newspaper interview in 1916, he invented...

"... the first hole ever seen by mortal eyes."

No mention is made of Hanson's corollary invention, not just the "nothing" in the center of the doughnut, but also the tasty "doughnut hole," although we can bet that those thrifty New Englanders fried those cutout centers too, just as we do to this day, for handy snacks. Pat Miller's slightly tongue-in-cheek recounting of Hanson's invention tells the whole story of that hole--the historical facts and the lore of the hole that developed around Hanson's quirky invention, backed up by an author's note covering the modern story of the doughnut, a timeline, and bibliography in the brief appendix. Artist Vincent X. Kirsch contributes the jaunty cut-paper collage illustrations that carry forth the metaphor by providing doughnut-shaped frames for Miller's text and endpapers that boast a varied array of doughnuts of more kinds than any pastry shop can proffer.

A witty and whimsical look at a charming bit of American gastronomical history that will leave young readers' curiosity satisfied, but their appetites perhaps whetted.

This one pairs naturally with Mara Rockliff's tasty true tale of Americana food lore, her Gingerbread for Liberty!: How a German Baker Helped Win the American Revolution. (Read my 2015 review here.)