A review by internationalkris
Beyond the Bright Sea by Lauren Wolk

5.0

I just finished the spectacular middle grade book Beyond the Bright Sea over the weekend which I am certain will get some Newbery recognition come February. (Maybe even a win for Lauren Wolk this year, after her wonderful Wolf Hollow got a silver last year. Fingers crossed!) The story opens with a young girl named Crow living with the guardian that she calls Osh on a small island in the North Atlantic. Life on the island is not easy for these two but they get by with their garden and their lobster traps, by selling landscape paintings and with help from a good neighbor on a nearby farm. It is the setting of the story that emerges first and most clearly in this book, but the characters come into focus more slowly as they are developed in layers and with care. We know that Crow is young and that she arrived at the island alone in a boat soon after her birth. We know that she looks different (darker) than most of the people around her and that they seem to fear her for this reason and also because she may have come from a nearby colony for lepers. Of Osh we know that he is quiet and doesn't talk to many people. We know that he speaks another language besides English though we don't know what it is. We know that he came from a land where he and his family were persecuted and that he hopes he has finally found freedom and independence and maybe a family on this island. Though underneath he always seems to fear that he will lose it all. Our understanding of these intriguing characters deepens as we also follow the adventurous storyline of this book as some clues to an old mystery on the island of lepers comes to light and people begin to search for a buried treasure. I absolutely don't want to spoil any surprises that you will experience as you read this gem; it is layers deep and full of warmth and humanity. As a point of interest two of my other favorites in middle grade fiction this year have involved ships carrying children to islands, Orphan Island and The Island at the End of Everything. The second of those was also about a historical leper colony. I wonder what is going on in our present zeitgeist to bring these themes forward? A feeling of displacement in the world? An awareness of the plight of refugees? Please jump into one of these stories and let me know what you think.