Shark Teeth is a 2024 middle grade novel by Sherri Winston. It follows Sharkita, a twelve-year-old girl dealing with managing a neglectful mother and ensuring her younger siblings are taken of. It won the Walter Dean Myers Award for Young Readers in 2025.
Plot After having been sent to separate foster care homes over the summer due to neglect, twelve-year-old Sharkita 'Kita' returns to her mother and is reunited with her siblings, five-year-old Lilli and eight-year-old Lamar, who has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Bullied due to her hyperdontia and anxious over her mother's irresponsible actions, she finds solace in the school's baton twirling team.
Reception Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews all gave Shark Teeth starred reviews. Kirkus Reviews dubbed the book "an outstanding depiction of the impact that family stressors can have on a household’s youngest members," while Publisher Weekly described it as a "harrowing, compassionate read." + Awards and nominationsYearAward/HonorResultRef.2025Walter Dean Myers Award for Young ReadersKirkus Prize for Young Reader's LiteratureSchneider Family Book Award - Middle Grade2024Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Books of the YearPublishers Weekly Best Middle Grade Books of the YearSchool Library Journal Best Books of the Year
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