“I could see why so many stories were set in lighthouses,” thinks Julia, the titular narrator of Julia and the Shark, upon reaching her household’s uncommon new dwelling for the summer season. “It’s a good place for adventures even before you go inside.”
In this illustrated center grade novel, award-winning British author Kiran Millwood Hargrave (The Mercies, The Way Past Winter) sweeps readers off to an intriguing setting: the island of Unst, the northernmost of the Shetland Islands, far past Scotland. Julia, her mother and father and her cat, Noodle, have moved right here from their dwelling in Cornwall. They’ll dwell at the lighthouse, the place Julia’s father has been employed to program the gentle to shine robotically, eliminating the have to make use of a lighthouse keeper.
Julia’s Mum is happy for his or her Shetland summer season too, since she’s a marine biologist and hopes to identify the elusive Greenland shark in the frigid waters off the island. The sharks have lifespans of a number of hundred years, and as Mum tells Julia, “They seem to be moving so slowly they can actually slow time down. And some researchers believe that we can find out what causes this, and use it to slow time down for humans, too.” Mum’s curiosity is deeply private, as Julia’s grandmother died of dementia.
As the summer season continues, Julia and her father discover that Mum’s conduct is rising more and more erratic. Hargrave realistically portrays Mum’s durations of mania, adopted by deep depressions, and conveys Julia’s confusion and fear that her mom’s shifting moods are by some means her fault. When Mum makes an attempt suicide and is hospitalized, Julia units off to discover a Greenland shark all on her personal, however the quest quickly places her in grave hazard.
Hargrave makes use of the distant Shetland setting to nice benefit whereas skillfully exploring themes of parental psychological sickness, bullying, the pure world and scientific discovery. The recurring motif of the shark lends environmental curiosity and a contact of mysticism to the story, as the shark turns into a logo of success, redemption and therapeutic for each Julia and her mom.
Illustrations by Tom de Freston, Hargrave’s husband, memorably improve the novel. De Freston makes use of a restricted colour palette of black, white, grey and shiny yellow to seize the swirling sea and the vastness of the stars above the island and its lighthouse. In addition to visualizing settings and scenes, de Freston additionally vividly evokes Julia’s tumultuous feelings, whether or not she’s having a sleepless evening worrying about Mum or combating for her life in the storm-tossed waves.
Julia and the Shark is a riveting, dramatic story by which prose and footage are completely paired.
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