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Lauren Wolk's Beyond the Bright Sea is a quiet, gripping island story for 11 year olds about a girl who washed up on an island when she was a newborn and wants to know why.
Crow was only hours old when someone tied her into a leaky old skiff and pushed it out to sea. It fetched up on a tiny island off New England, where a man called Osh went out for his breakfast fish and found her instead.
He kept her. Twelve years later they still live there together, in a cottage he built from bits of shipwrecks, with a skinny cat called Mouse. Their one real friend is Miss Maggie on the next island, who scolds everyone, tells the truth and makes the best soup on the islands.
It sounds idyllic, and a lot of it is. But the people on the next island won't come near Crow. They wave at her rather than shake her hand. When she finally tries school, a boy calls her a leper and the teacher wipes the door latch after she leaves.
They think she came from Penikese, a nearby island that used to be a hospital for people with leprosy. Crow doesn't know if they're right. Nobody does.
Then one night she sees a fire burning out on Penikese, where nobody ever goes. And she decides, on her own, that it's time to find out where she came from.
This is a book to sink into slowly. Crow tells it herself and she notices everything, from the pearls in some oysters but not others to the sound porridge makes landing in a bowl. The writing is gorgeous, but it never gets in the way of the story.
What really gets you is how much she loves Osh and how much she still needs to know. He'd rather she stopped asking. She can't (would you?).
The way the islanders treat Crow is unkind and it's described plainly, from the name-calling to the fear of touching her. Leprosy is talked about honestly too, including what it does to people's bodies. A sensitive reader might find those pages upsetting.
If your reader loves a slow, thoughtful story with a mystery at its heart, this is a real treat. Crow even hints early on that treasure is waiting for her somewhere (and that she'll find it where nobody else would dare to look).
If this one goes down well, try Echo Mountain by the same author. Ellie's family has lost everything and moved up into the wild woods, and a newborn puppy everyone thinks is dead is the first life she saves.
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