Beyond the Bright Sea Book Review

 









Beyond the Bright Sea

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Wolk, Lauren. Beyond the Bright Sea. Scholastic, 2019. ISBN: 978-1-10199-487-0

2.  PLOT SUMMARY

Crow was found by Osh as a newborn in a skimmer on a tiny island. She grew up being ostracized by everyone because she was thought to come from the island where the lepers were sent. The only other person who would interact with Crow was Miss Maggie who gave her lessons. Crow wants to learn where she’s from and why her parents abandoned her. One evening she spotted a fire on the forbidden Penikese Island and wants to investigate. Osh gives Crow a ring and a ripped note that were found with her the night she washed ashore.  Osh and Miss Maggie accompany her to the island. There is a gamekeeper who is not so friendly. Crow finds clues that match the tattered note given to her the night before. This all leads to letters to the doctor and nurse who helped those on the island, a trip to the orphanage where a boy was sent from Penikese, the real gamekeeper was left for dead, and a sailor who looked like Crow. the mystery man posing as the gamekeeper puts them in danger when he comes looking for treasure on the island. Crow has discovered she is the baby thought to be buried in the cemetery who died at birth. The treasure is found and taken back to her home and Miss Maggie’s home. The imposter returns looking for the treasure meanwhile, a boat has shipwrecked with Crow’s possible brother. The man is tricked and captured and the boy is found out not to be her brother. Crow sends treasure to various orphanages but keeping some for her brother and herself. 

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Beyond the Bright Sea is a mysterious and adventurous book with twists and turns on each page. Crow and Osh intriguing characters with mysterious pasts. The plot is accurately depicted from the time period of early 1920’s on the Massachusetts coast. The authenticity of time period is evident in historical accounts of the islands. The theme of the story is family is who you make it. Crow could have gone elsewhere but chose to stay with Osh. The style is written from the point of view of Crow struggling with being content with her life on the island and discovering where she came from. The authenticity of book is balanced with fact and fiction as the author mentions the wealthy that would summer on the islands as well as pirate Captain Kidd hid treasure on the islands. Wolk wove in facts about the Pinikese island used for lepers, but in real life it was for smallpox. The island was made into a bird sanctuary after smallpox died out which is paralleled in the book. She used the cultural center of Cape Cod for her research for this book. Made for 4th grade and up, I feel this is more 5th grade and up due to the shear volume of pages. However, it is easy to get lost in the gripping book as I feverishly read page after page. Beyond the Bright Sea received the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction in 2018


4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

Booklist starred (May 15, 2017 (Vol. 113, No. 18))

Grades 4-7. Crow was a mere baby when she drifted to the shore of one of the Elizabeth Islands off the coast of Massachusetts in the first quarter of the twentieth century. She has since grown up with the painter Osh as her stand-in father; their only other friend is Maggie, who teaches Crow. Nearby Penikese Island was home to a leper colony at the time of Crow’s birth, and most of the island folk assume her birth parents were lepers and shun her. Now a 12-year-old and uncertain of her parentage, Crow becomes increasingly curious following a fire on the now supposedly vacant Penikese. Where did she really come from? What happened to her parents, and is there a chance she has any surviving blood relatives? Crow’s quest for answers as she grapples with her uncertain identity shapes the 2017 Newbery Honor Book author’s sophomore novel. While this quiet, affecting story lacks the palpable sense of dread and superb pacing that made Wolf Hollow (2016) so impossible to put down, there’s still plenty to admire in this more classic-feeling historical novel, which calls to mind Natalie Babbitt’s The Eyes of the Amaryllis (1977). Wolk has a keen sense for the seaside landscape, skillfully mining the terror the ocean can unleash as a furious nor’easter heightens tension in the novel’s climax. Historical fiction fans awaiting her follow-up will be pleased.

5. CONNECTIONS

Books by Lauren Wolk:

Wolk, Lauren. Echo Mountain. London, Penguin Random House Children’s UK, 2020. ISBN:978-0-525-55558-2

Wolk, Lauren. Wolf Hollow: A Novel. Puffin Books, 2018. ISBN:  978-1-10199-484-9


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