Read The Lost Whale free in the Little Reads app.
Hannah Gold's The Lost Whale is a moving ocean adventure for 8 year olds about a boy sent to the other side of the world while his mum gets better.
Rio is eleven and lives in London with his mum, a violinist. She's been ill for a long time, the kind of illness you can't see, and now she's going into hospital.
So Rio's put on a plane to California to stay with Fran, the grandmother he hasn't seen for five years. Fran wears a shiny turquoise jumpsuit and isn't very good at hugs. Rio doesn't want to be there, and he tells her so.
Then Fran leaves a shoebox on his bed. It's his mum's old Box of Joy, and at the bottom is a sketchbook full of whales. Grey whales pass right by Ocean Bay every winter. One of them, a whale with white markings called White Beak, is drawn again and again.
Rio gets an idea. If he can find the whales and send his mum photos, maybe it'll make her smile. Maybe it'll even help her get better. And a girl called Marina, who watches whales from the pier with binoculars and a notebook, might be exactly who he needs.
This one really gets under your skin. Rio has been looking after his mum for years, cooking dinners and hiding how hard things were at home. You feel how tightly he's holding on (and why he snaps at Fran over the smallest thing).
It's written so gently, though. The ocean roars and breathes on almost every page, and it comforts Rio as much as it will your reader.
Rio's mum has a mental illness and is in a hospital for it. It's handled with care, but his worry is very real, and he sometimes wonders if it's his fault. A museum visit also shows old whaling photos, with dead whales and red water, which upset him badly. For a child with a parent who's unwell, this could feel very close to home. It might also be exactly the book that helps.
If your reader loves an animal story with big feelings, The Last Bear is by the same author. April is off to an Arctic island with her dad, and three weeks after she arrives she comes face to face with a polar bear.
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