This week’s featured book, Girl, Boy, Sea, is the perfect example of why we should never judge a book by its cover; our group felt the design suggests a book aimed at younger readers, however that certainly wasn’t the case and they appear to have really enjoyed it!

Girl, Boy, Sea by Chris Vick

Fifteen year old Bill is lost and alone on an endless sea after a storm sinks his yacht off the coast of the Canary Islands. In a twist of fate he finds another survivor from a different wreck, clinging to a floating barrel. The girl is Aya, a refugee from the nomadic Berber tribe. Whilst Bill sets about their situation with practical skills to ensure their survival, Aya acts as storyteller, recounting her own versions of the Arabian Nights.

What Bushey Meads Shadowers say:
“Girl, Boy, Sea was an amazing book that was full of friendship! It’s a world of fear and the discovery of an unlikely friendship! ”  – Alayna, Yr 7

“I really liked the book, it was nothing that I had expected, it wasn’t like a happily ever after or like a fairytale, it was about a girl and boy who had to help each other survive through excruciating conditions in their little boat with few supplies. They had to figure out how to communicate while in the middle of the ocean and barely alive until they reach land.” – Benigna Yr8

With the sea as a dominant backdrop – both beautiful and tempestuous, the book explores friendship and endurance across cultures. The inclusion of the stories told by Aya, portray the escapism people find in reading fiction. You can see a fascinating interview with Chris Vick talking about this book and reading an extract at https://carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/books/girl-boy-sea/ .

If you would like to read the book, it is available from our new ebook collection. Simply download the Sora app or go to soraapp.com, enter the setup code: uk secondary, find Bushey Meads School and log in with your GMail credentials to get started.