Needles of Pain!

The Danger Below! series is not for the faint of heart. Each of these high-interest volumes introduces basic facts by way of an intense fic­tion comic, divided into three brief chapters, about people being “attacked” by specific deep-sea creatures (it’s made clear that the ani­mals aren’t intentionally hurting humans). Dangerous Teeth! involves a scuba diver losing his thumb while trying to feed a moray eel. Floating Misery! sees a lifeguard getting entangled in the long, stinging tentacles of a Portuguese-man o’ war. Killer Tentacles! features beach-going chil­dren encountering box jellyfish. In Needles of Pain!, a surfer steps on a stonefish camouflaged as coral. Each comic intersperses facts naturally enough into dialogue and captions, as well as in a back-matter spread that pairs more information about the subject with full-color photog­raphy. Anderson’s illustrations are made accessible for early-level readers thanks to simple paneling, clear visual cues, and limited detail. Despite blood spurts, scarring, and other very real consequences to the underwa­ter attacks, all the victims here pull through, and Buckley includes some information on surviving, namely applying vinegar to stingers and get­ting to a hospital. Back matter rounds things out with a glossary, index, further reading, and examples of similarly dangerous fish. Brisk, visual storytelling makes these dramatic shorts suitable to a certain kind of high/low reader interested in specific marine life.