Grade 5-9-These six stories were inspired by tales of real people who survived shipwrecks. In 1540, Peter Serrano, a Spanish traveler, was marooned on a barren island near Peru and survived by eating sea turtles and using their shells for shade and shelter. In the 1940s, 15-year-old Henri Roi's swimming prowess made him a legend. In the water with shipmates after their boat capsizes, Henri says, "We gonna make it.- I not gonna let you drown. I got the Great Maker in my heart and King Neptune in my bones; I can swim forever. This sea, this angry sea, is nothing to me." The teen's story is told in colorful language and with the dramatic flair of a storyteller. Ghosts and mythical creatures appear throughout the stories, especially in "The Beasts of Philip Ashton," in which the castaway succumbs to madness trying to ward off the night beasts and day beasts. A story about Logan Welsh and a ghostly encounter with the Pinta is loosely based on the real adventures of Joshua Slocum. While some stories are stronger than others, this collection would make a good read-aloud for middle grades.
Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY
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From Booklist
Gr. 5-8. A moderately engaging group of six tales, each based, however tenuously, on historical or first-person accounts, with clear endnotes about what was taken from sources and what the author invented. The stories have a curiously flat tone, but drinking turtle's blood ("The Turtle Island of Peter Serrano"), being saved by ghosts ("The Modern Mariner and the Pilot of the Pinta"), and living as the sole survivor of a shipwreck ("The Widow Carey's Chickens") do have their appeal, especially for readers steeped in Survivor lore and pirate films. Where these stories really come to pulsing life is in descriptions of endurance swimming at sea: Hausman is himself a long-distance swimmer, and the vividness of those passages is riveting. GraceAnne DeCandido
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