She gives the kids all the clues they need, and no doubt some of them will solve some of the origins of Crow’s birth on their own.
And if it is a mystery then Wolk is playing fair.
I certainly wouldn’t peg the book as a straight-up mystery, but after Chapter 10 that feeling does begin to pervade the pages.
There’s a man out there who thinks she has what he wants, and if Crow isn’t careful she’ll lose everything she has in pursuit of what she wants. What she doesn’t know is that delving deep into the mystery will reveal a lot more than her family. Now Crow is older and she wants to know where she came from. He could have turned her in to the proper authorities, but for a man escaping a past he’d never discuss, it was actually easier to raise her with the help of his neighbor Miss Maggie. Clearly her boat came from Penikese where the leprosy sanitarium was located. Maybe the real beginning was when Osh found her as a baby, washed up on the shore in a makeshift boat. The proof is in the pudding.Ĭrow says it was seeing that light on Penikese Island that started it all, but I don’t know if you’d agree. Wolk actually knows how to write for kids, and not just that, write beautifully. Leprosy, pirate gold, orphans, shipwrecks, lost messages, they all crowd the pages and leave you coming back for more. Beyond the Bright Sea is a slower, statelier novel than a lot of books out there, but once it reaches its full speed there’s no holding it back. If I’d had high expectations, they would have been met. Would that change Wolk’s writing style at all? Could she maintain the same level of written sophistication if she knew the book was going to be read by young people, or would she veer off into the dreaded trying-too-hard territory known by too many authors all too well? Heck, would she even respect her audience or would she be writing down to them? In retrospect, I suspect that it didn’t matter much how I felt about the book walking into it. Beyond the Bright Sea, her next novel, is written specifically with a child audience in mind from the start. And while I greatly enjoyed Lauren Wolk’s debut novel (and Newbery Honor winner) Wolf Hollow I also knew full well that the author originally intended that book to be a written work for adults. A writer is only as good as their latest book, as any jaded 10-year-old will tell you. Your last book have been a spot-on bit of brilliance, lighting up the literary landscape like a thousand Roman candles. Dutton (an imprint of Penguin Young Readers)
0 kommentar(er)
