Recommended Reading
Dive into something deep this summer! From mermaids to merchant men, salty dogs to sailors, we’ve got leagues of seaworthy stories to float your literary boat. Batten down your hatches, and take one of these titles for a sail. Heck, take two.
Isabel Allende
City of the Beasts
Alexander accompanies his grandmother down the Amazon in search of a legendary, nine-foot Beast, in this utterly thrilling adventure.
Y FIC ALL
Avi
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
Charlotte begins her transatlantic journey as a prim schoolgirl, and arrives in America a swashbuckling mutineer, accused of murder.
Y FIC AVI
Eve Bunting
SOS Titanic
Class conflict, second sight, and romance all find a place in this gripping, suspenseful retelling of the infamous sinking of the great Titanic.
Y FIC BUN
Sharon Creech
The Wanderer
Sophie and Cody take turns telling this exciting, heartbreaking story of a family’s journey across the Atlantic in a small sail boat.
Y FIC CRE
Nancy Farmer
A Girl Named Disaster
When Nhamo flees a cholera epidemic and an arranged marriage to stay with her father’s family across the river, a two day boat trip turns into a year.
Y FIC FAR
Paula Fox
The Slave Dancer
When slave traders hear him piping on the docks, Jessie is kidnapped, and made to pipe for the slaves, who are forced to dance to stay strong.
Y FIC FOX
Brian Jacques
Castaways of the Flying Dutchman
Ben, stowaway orphan on the Flying Dutchman, and his dog Ned are swept overboard, and encounter a fate of remarkable surprises.
Y FIC JAC
Iain Lawrence
The Wreckers
When wreckers lure his father’s ship to ground with a false beacon, it falls to young John Spencer to save his father, and himself.
Y FIC LAW
Victoria McKernan
Shackleton’s Stowaway
Perce Blackborow, stowaway on the legendary Endurance, shipwrecked on the ice in 1914, survives frostbite, hunger, and other perils in this chilly adventure.
Y FIC MAC
Scott O’Dell
The King’s Fifth
Young Esteban de Sandoval, mapmaker to Coronado, recounts the tale of their search for the Seven Golden Cities, and his subsequent fall to greed, from his prison cell.
Y FIC ODE |
