The Edge of the Ocean

L. D. Lapinski's The Edge of the Ocean is a magical adventure for 9 year olds that sends a girl through an old suitcase into a world of pirates, mer-folk and a sea that's disappearing.

What happens

Flick Hudson knows a secret. At the old travel agency in her sleepy village, every suitcase on the wall leads to another world. You just step inside.

She's already had one adventure through them. Now she's grounded for the whole summer holidays, because she vanished for a day and a night and couldn't tell her parents why.

Then she bumps into Jonathan, who runs the agency, in the supermarket. He charms her mum so well that Flick is allowed a "summer job" at the shop. It's a lovely scene (Jonathan also goes bright pink when a friendly student called Anthony says hello, and begs Flick never to mention it).

But when she gets there, there's a stranger behind the desk. Avery is Jonathan's sort-of cousin from another world, and she's clever, spiky and very sure of herself. Flick can't stand her. Or so she tells herself!

That prickly new friendship is one of the best bits. You can feel Flick's jealousy, and anyone who's had a best friend suddenly share them with someone new will know exactly how that feels.

The adventure itself arrives as a glowing spark that floats out of a keyhole and turns into a letter. It's from Nyfe Shaban, a one-eyed pirate captain who calls herself the Pirate Queen. Her world, the Break, is a flat circle of sea, and its edges are crumbling away. Ships are vanishing. She wants Jonathan's help (and her letter ends with a curse, just to make sure he comes).

So the three of them step through a dripping suitcase onto a slimy jetty, then head out to sea in a little boat called the Rooster. The sky is lit by rips in the dark.

It's a really vivid world to be dropped into, with stuffed crab-heads on the menu and a grumpy scribe who calls his own pigeon a cur. And there's lots of humour in the way the three of them bicker.

It's not a scary book, but there's real danger in it. Pirates and mer-folk have been fighting for centuries, people carry knives, and a whole world is at stake.

What to read next

This one picks up a few weeks after Flick's first Strangeworlds adventure. If your reader hasn't met Flick and Jonathan yet, start with The Strangeworlds Travel Agency, where a boy wanders in looking for a games shop and a suitcase bursts open with an octopus attached.