Sea by Sarah Driver. Book Review

Living aboard her grandmother’s ship, Huntress, Mouse dreams of being captain of Huntress one day. But her father has gone missing and treachery is afoot, threatening to change the life of Mouse and her brother, Sparrow, forever.

This is a hugely imaginative rendering of a tribe of people who live and breathe life on the sea and for whom dry land is an anathema. The children live on board the ships where equal rights mean that women can command their own crew.

Mouse’s world is immersive with a real sense of the smell of salt spray and the creaking timbers of the ship. The dialect Sarah Driver uses might create problems for some of the book’s intended readers but, for those who get to grips with it, will find its use increases the sense of really being there, and the intensity of Mouse’s frenetic, first person narration.

Mouse is a very passionate individual, with a sense of independence and a complete lack of understanding that she has much to learn where subtlety is concerned; placing her in constant danger and a whole world of trouble. But it is this inability to be passive which is also her salvation.

This is a full-blooded, nail-biting adventure, complete with evil, conniving villains and pterodactyls (called terrodyls in the book).

Definitely a book whose possession will be fought over by parents and children, and one which will be passed to the children of those who are reading it now.

Sea was courtesy of Egmont, via NetGalley.