The Secrets of the Shallows

LoveReading4Kids Says

Lucy and friends Jack and Solomon love to dive and explore the ocean, working at the Dive centre outside of school. This passion is the focus of our story, introducing us to Lucy as she keeps a student dive safe. There’s plenty of underwater explorations throughout this book for fellow sea lovers, with exciting encounters with a range of different creatures. 

With a love of the sea and the creatures within comes a focus on where the underwater world meets the land, with concerns about seagrass habitats being damaged by people and boats, protecting dugong from boat propellers and stopping turtle beaches being destroyed. When Lucy overhears plans for hotels to be built on the already protected Turtle hatching beaches, Lucy and her friends work to petition the council to stop it, coming up with their own solutions.

But this fight to protect the turtles gets more exciting as they must stop suspicious visitors who’ve arrived to sabotage the beach and destroy this year’s hatchlings. I liked that there was a mixture of Lucy and her friends working together to create a realistic plan to present and stop the construction as well as having a more thrilling direct action in stopping the saboteurs which fits within children’s fiction. 

The Secrets of the Shallows is an entertaining and exciting read that is also educational about marine life and its habitats. I hadn’t heard of a lot of the animals featured in the book like Dugong, or a Titan Triggerfish, and the photo guide at the end was a great addition to provide information on the animals as well as a photo that can help the reader bring them to life, although colour photos would have been even better to help with this.

Although educational and containing a lot of information, it’s all deftly woven into the story in a way that is engaging and entertaining. This is a great book that has a strong eco theme and will suit readers who love the sea and learning about all different kinds of sea creatures.

About The Secrets of the Shallows

Winner of the International Impact Award 2025 - an award recognising a children's story that is inspirational and motivational.

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