CYNTHIA COOPER SHAW
"It is a too-rare treat for me to encounter an author who, with complete success, can provide accurate science within an appealing story... E.B.White and Kenneth Grahame had the style that gave their animal characters believable voice and thought. Cynthia Shaw has it, too."
From the foreword by Stan Waterman, five-time Emmy Award-winning producer of underwater films, and subject of a two-hour Discovery Channel special, The Man Who Loves Sharks
Available for purchase through any of the links below. If you'd like to support a great cause, purchase through REEF and 100% of proceeds will go to the Grouper Moon Project.
GROUPER MOON
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Cooper, an affable Nassau Grouper, has been content with his life on the reef as a loner, until he awakens one morning to realize that for the first time in his seven years of life, he is lonely. His comfortable life is turned upside down as his bones call him on a mysterious mission of great importance to his kind—and it’s a matter of life and death.
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Renny is an independent, free-diving island boy whose life is his reef in Coconut Cove, which has become the site for a future dive resort. The world is coming, and Renny fears his reef will become over-dived and damaged, as has happened with other Caribbean reefs. And there’s nothing he can do about it. Or is there?
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While spearfishing on Christmas Day, Renny is tracking Cooper when the grouper leads him into a dark, secret retreat - where their two worlds become magically linked by common concerns and uncommon friendships. Renny’s not so afraid of the world, now that he’s got a place to hide from it.
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Meanwhile, islanders prepare for Grouper Moon, anticipating their largest catch of the year as the island’s adult endangered Nassau Grouper population gathers to spawn at the grouper hole. When Renny learns that Cooper's first journey into the unknown may be his last, he must make the ultimate choice: will he keep his magical treasure to himself? Or will sharing his reef with outsiders—what Renny fears most of all—be the key to saving Cooper and their precious reef?
A timeless story, with accurate science and authentic issues, Grouper Moon is about friendship and trust, second chances, and having the courage to reach out and make a difference in a big world.
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GROUPER MOON is the anchor text for the Reef Environmental Education Foundation's Grouper Moon Project educational outreach curriculum.
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Enjoyable entertainment and learning for kids, 10 & up. (RL-5.3).
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Middle Grade (Magical Realism)
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Paperback: 151 pages
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Publisher: Aurelia Press (December 1999)
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Language: English
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ISBN-10: 0967059526
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ISBN-13: 978-0967059525
"It has been a wonderful class experience," wrote Louise Marquering, who used Grouper Moon in her 7th grade classroom at Hamilton Creek School in Lebanon, Oregon before her retirement. "It really held the students' interest and is up there with My Side of the Mountain and Where the Red Fern Grows for favorite stories."
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"Cynthia Shaw has done a wonderful job in creating an educational book that is highly entertaining... she presents many important and thought-provoking conservation issues... As a grouper biologist, I can happily say the biology in Grouper Moon is right on target." Anne-Marie Eklund, Ph.D., Research Fisheries Biologist, NOAA-Fisheries.
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Brenda Bryce (Cayman Prep, Grand Cayman) had some of her 4th grade class make a replica of the grotto as a reading nook. Others teamed up to make a life-sized model of Renny on the reef! Aren't they the coolest? (Photos courtesy of Brenda Bryce)
For a fun Readers' Theatre from Grouper Moon, click here. It's a PDF.
