Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2610 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-04
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Synopsis
How far would you go to find yourself? The lyrical, life-affirming new novel from the bestselling author of Private Peaceful There were dozens of us on the ship, all up on deck for the leaving of Liverpool, gulls wheeling and crying over our heads, calling good-bye! That is all I remember of England. When six-year-old orphan Arthur Hobhouse is shipped to Australia after WWII he loses his sister, his country and everything he knows. Overcoming enormous hardships with fellow orphan Marty, Arthur is finally saved by the extraordinary people he meets and by his talent for boat-design and sailing. Now he has built a special boat for his daughter Allie - a solo yacht designed to carry her to England in search of his long-lost sister. Will the threads of Arthur's life finally come together? I was there on the quayside to see Allie take her out for the first time, saw her dancing through the waves, and I knew I'd never built a finer boat.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant!
My 10 year old daughter's review of this book is:
I, myself, think that this book was amazing. Once you start reading it you can't stop. So when it's time to stop you have to tell yourself to!
I liked the phrases he used in the book.
I recommend this book to people who like a bit of mystery and ancient family stories.

A raw and inescapable book of lives as changeable as the sea itself .
Well written in two parts, the first two-thirds of this book is the story of Arthur, a young orphan shipped to Australia in 1947 without family or understanding. He has to leave behind everything he has ever known behind except for a "lucky key" he was given by his sister Kitty until the time they would be reunited, and the song London Bridge is Falling Down in his heart. Although his first sea voyage is miserable and his first years in the outback desperately hard, he grows to love the sea, the Ancient Mariner is his bible, and he becomes a master boat-builder. Life then takes a dive into deep dark water where he flounders for some years before finding `dry land' once again.
The second section of the book has a far more contemporary style: it is largely a diary of one-way conversational e-mails sent back home from the boat on which Allie, Arthur's daughter, returns to England. This is a single handed sailing from Australia to England in her late teens, a sort-of Ellen MacAthur-esque narrative for junior readers -that doesn't pull its punches. It's a long and arduous journey: a grim, cold and wet trip retracing her father's steps, and the highs and lows of Allie's mood on that long solitary journey mirror the towering dangerous waves. It's a triumphant ending though as the story comes full circle and the meaning of the `lucky key' ties into the underlying spirit of the book.
This vivid and realistic story, told in such different voices, interweaves the raw feeling of aloneness with the strength of family ties and raises the question of the importance of tracing who you are and where you came from, while glancing upon on a range of issues such as depression, gambling and cancer that drag you down as well as the things that lift you and give the strength and courage to go on. This raw and inescapable book will make you think and stretch your emotions - the lifes of Arthur and then Allie are as changeable in mood as the sea itself - rich fulfilling blues, dark jagged grey undercurrents & persistent stormy seas.
And if you enjoy this book (the first part in particular) the raw highs and lows of this, then you must try next the incredible Holes by Louis Sachar.

classic!!!
i am not going to go on about this novel however it
really is a book which doesn't strain your eyes and
is simple and such a great story.

If you love adventure this is the perfect book, a
must read. The simplicity yet the attention to
detail sets this book at top of the range, its
interesting and has a great storyline, you wont want
to put it down!!