  | When sea becomes sky Author: McDunn, Gillian | |
| Price: $22.38 | ||
Summary:
As Pelican Island's history-making drought wears on, the water level on Bex and Davey's beloved marsh reveals the hand of a statue that has been underneath the water for who knows how long, and the siblings are determined to find out more.
| Accelerated Reader Information: Interest Level: MG Reading Level: 4.50 Points: 6.0 Quiz: 518341 |
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (12/15/22)
Booklist (+) (12/01/23)
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (+) (02/00/23)
The Hornbook (00/01/23)
Full Text Reviews:
Booklist - 01/01/2023 *Starred Review* It’s June in coastal North Carolina, and 11-year-old Bex wants nothing more than to spend her summer exploring the salt marshes in her rowboat with her younger brother, Davey, who’s “a bit of a genius.” He has become uncommonly quiet over the past year. Meanwhile Bex, who aims to be a writer, feels that she needs his encouragement to keep trying. Currently, she’s in a creative dry spell. Her family lives on an island in a region where a drought is gradually lowering the water level in the marsh. Spotting a metallic hand reaching upwards from the water’s surface, Bex discovers a larger-than-life statue mostly submerged. Bex decides to find the sculptor and discover why this artwork was hidden in the marsh. McDunn, whose middle-grade novels include The Queen Bee and Me (2020) and Honestly Elliott (2022), creates memorable characters within a distinctive setting. Written with immediacy and grace, Bex’s first-person narrative increasingly focuses on the mystery and her determination to solve it with Davey’s help, until a meeting with the sculptor forces this unreliable narrator to reveal the central truth that she’s been hiding all along. It’s a pivotal moment for Bex and a wrenching one for readers of this quiet, yet fully engaging novel. - Copyright 2023 Booklist.
