A Message to the Sea

Description

It's been a year since Tom Pellow's dad was lost at sea. He was a sailor and Tom also finds himself drawn to the vast ocean; it holds so many possibilities, dangers and secrets. After hearing a song on the radio, Tom decides to write a message in a bottle, and throw it out into the sea. To 'cast his bread upon the waters'. He doesn't really expect to hear back, but Tom keeps writing anyway, sending messages out on the tide and searching the waves for a reply. One day he finds one. It's a letter that seems to be from a ghost, deep down in Davy Jones's Locker - and the writer has a shocking answer to Tom's question. But if Tom's dad didn't perish at sea, where is he? A charming and beautifully written story about grief, hope and miracles.

Alex Shearer was born in Wick, in the far North of Scotland. He has written several TV series, stage plays, radio plays and comedy scripts. Moving into writing for children, his novels BOOTLEG and THE GREATEST STORE IN THE WORLD were adapted for television by the BBC, and his 2003 novel THE SPEED OF THE DARK was shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. He has previously published THE CLOUD HUNTERS, SKY RUN and THE MINISTRY OF GHOSTS with Hot Key Books. Alex lives in Somerset and is married with two grown-up children.

Shearer handles a difficult, poignant topic with sensitivity, warmth and a deep understanding of a child's bewilderment and need for answers * Lancashire Evening Post * This book shines with honesty: Shearer fearlessly explores grief- Tom's and his family's - creates a community which lives, yer on year with the knowledge that a life lived on the sea may be cut short at any time, creates characters who live on the page. He explores the hope which lives on in the face of impossible odds and he makes a 200 year dead sailor a credible, central character * Books For Keeps * Sympathetically writen, dealing with issues such as mourning, hope, expectation and belief and can be recommended * The School Librarian *