The Shark Prince

By Malia Maunakea

From the award-winning author of the Lei and the Legends duology comes a sharp new fantasy about a Hawaiian boy who can transform into what people fear most: a shark.

In a small Hawaiian village, Nohea is the latest son in a long line of male ancestors with a horrible secret: He's half-human, half-shark. After his father--also cursed as a shark--kills someone while surfing and subsequently disappears, Nohea is left isolated with only his mom and tūtū as company. He knows he'll suffer the same fate one day, so he can't go to school or make any friends.

Worse yet, when he eventually succumbs to his shark-like cravings, he'll be put to death, and his family will have to move to the continent. But when Nohea sees a flyer for a new surf competition, he realizes the prize money might be enough to help his family afford to stay in Hawaii when Nohea is gone. The catch? The competition is for school teams only.

So taking the biggest risk yet, Nohea joins the local public seventh-grade class where he makes friends, contends with a school bully, and gets so angry, he discovers a new row of supersharp teeth in his mouth But this is only the beginning of Nohea's problems.

Because soon, Nohea realizes that one by one, his surfing friends are disappearing. Is Nohea killing his classmates without knowing it? Or is something even more dangerous afoot?

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0593890728
• ISBN13: 9780593890721
• Release Date: May 2026
• Publisher: Penguin Workshop
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

Interesting plot - Lacking in Depth

First, I will begin with, this story has a very intriguing plot line. Without giving away any spoilers this story is a modern take to a Hawaiian legend. Nohea is a teenage boy and descendant of the Hawaiian demigod, Nanaue. He has grown up and lived with the constant knowledge and reminder that one day he will turn into a shark and possibly eat someone like his father did. I let the reader read the full description, but the short of it, a series of events leads him to going to public school and his shark-side begins to rear its ugly head, as the same time classmates begin to disappear. Malia Maunakee does a great job at keeping the mystery and suspense going in the story. Introducing knew layers of complication keeps the story fresh and moving. I do enjoy the descriptions in this book as well, but where they often landed didn't work for me. It wasn't uncommon for descriptions to interrupt and slow down some of the movement in this story. Like I said, the descriptions were good, but I personally think if they were just placed in slightly different places, they would have worked better to move the story along. This story was written primarily in Nohea's perspective which really worked for keeping the mystery. I also liked that it had themes of community and loyalty to family - sort of - I have some mixed feeling with how family was portrayed. Ultimately, though there is a value placed on family. That being said, here are some of the reasons I didn't like it as much. I'll start with the character of Nohea. He is a believable character, but I got the sense he was pretty flat. He did go through big changes, even some growth in how he went about handling problems, but overall, he always went about trying to get what he wanted the same way. Nohea wasn't allowed to be humble and wrong - wrong in how he handle things yes, but not in his ultimate desire. There was a sense that everyone else around him was wrong and needed to be changed, and he was right and just needed to change others mind by talking a little different. The story itself lacked depth. There were some really awesome opportunities to dive deeper in truths and realities of this world that were glossed over. Some of Nohea's methods for control weren't bad but they were also contradicting to his overall struggled. The author could have done a lot with letting love and compassion overcome his struggle by teaching Nohea to think less on himself, his plans, and what he wanted and start seeing the struggles and needs of others - even his enemies. As it was, compassion and love came really only after he started getting what he wanted. There were other minor aspects to this story I personally didn't like but don't need to go into. I think the version I read is still going to go through some editing processes, which would be good. There were a lot of typos and grammar issues through the story that confused some scenes and sentences. By the time this is published hopefully most of those will be caught and fixed. As it was, because of the lack of depth in this story it isn't one that makes me want to read it again.