Beyond the Bright Sea

I could practically smell the salt air and the rank odour of seaweed wafting from the pages of this novel. Author Lauren Wolk clearly loves the sea herself. Her knowledge of it is portrayed through the daily life of the book's strong, girl protagonist, Crow. I felt like I was there, wading through the mucky sand, digging clams, and bumping around in the wooden skiff that Crow and her guardian, Osh, rely on for transportation. An adventure, a mystery, and a celebration of the richness of island life, Beyond the Bright Sea stayed with me long after I finished the… show more.

I read this book with my mother-daughter book group and we all loved it!

The story focuses on the quest for twelve-year-old Crow to discover where she came from and who she truly is. It’s a story filled with suspense and intrigue fueled by Crow’s insatiable curiosity. There are powerful lessons here for Crow and for the lucky readers who follow her journey. The writing is hauntingly beautiful!

Being abandoned and set adrift as an infant sure is tough. But Crow, now twelve, is ready to face the realities of who she is and where she came from. When a mysterious light appears on the island from which she was sent, Crow becomes involved in a trip of discovery with hidden treasure, shipwrecks and danger aplenty. Crow’s tenacious journey kept me on the edge of my seat, waiting breathlessly to find out what would happen next. But it was her courage and determination to discover who her family is and to ultimately discover what family is truly about that kept me… show more.

Having grown up in New England, I thought I knew a lot about Massachusetts history, but Beyond the Bright Sea introduced me to a little-known aspect of life in the 1920s. Like twelve-year-old Crow, I wanted to find out why she was set afloat as an infant on the bright, blue sea off the Massachusetts coast. Who put this baby into the sea alone? Why? The mystery intrigued me as much as the history.

Beyond the Bright Sea tells the story of twelve-year-old Crow, who was abandoned and set adrift in a rowboat when she was just hours old in the Elizabeth Islands in Massachusetts. Lauren Wolk does a seamless job weaving mystery into Crow's world as Crow begins to question her identity and the consequences of receiving answers, or not, about her past. Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award, this book helped me understand my own character's heart-wrenching questions of belonging and what it means to be a family, and I could not put it down! 

Twelve-year-old Crow lives on one of the tiny windswept Elizabeth Islands just off the coast of Woods Hole, Massachusetts. She loves fishing for lobsters, collecting mussels, and caring for her neighbor Miss Maggie’s barnyard animals. Crow climbs trees as skillfully as a squirrel, and her best friend is a cat named Mouse. Beyond the Bright Sea unpacks concepts of loss and selfhood—what it means to be abandoned, what it means to be found—but above all, it shines a dazzling spotlight on the ocean: shimmering, foaming, ominous, home. Crow is an indelible main character who will tug at readers’ heartstrings… show more.

“When I was a baby, someone tucked me into an old boat and pushed me out to sea.” From the opening lines of this story there is a sense of mystery…an unknown history, unknown even to the main character, Crow, that pulled me in. On a sparsely populated island off the coast of Massachusetts, Crow lives happily with Osh, the man that rescued her from that tiny old boat. But Crow wants answers to questions that tug at her heart. Where does she come from? Why was she put in that boat? The wonderful sense of place beautifully depicted by… show more.

What would it be like if I knew nothing about my past? And what would I do to try to find out about my birth parents? I love the internal emotional struggles the main character, Crow, faces in this book. She’s unable to connect emotionally with outsiders yet worries her adoptive parent will be angry she’s researching the clues she thinks lead to her birth story. I was fascinated that two islands off the coast of Massachusetts could be so different—Cuttyhunk, a local tourist destination—and Pekinese, a leper colony. Since I live in the Midwest, reading about life surrounded by… show more.