The Night Ship by Jess Kidd is a wonderful novel. It tells the stories of two nine-year-old children as they each start out on a new life following the death of their mothers. Two intertwined lives, but centuries apart.
In 1628, Mayken embarks on a long voyage on the doomed Dutch vessel Batavia, to live with a father she has never met. More than three hundred years later, Gil is set to begin a new life with his reclusive and unpopular grandfather on Beacon Island (Batavia's Graveyard) off the coast of Western Australia. The two children have quite different characters : Mayken is a fiesty, inquisitive young lady who finds adventure during the voyage, most of it below decks where she makes some very special friends. Gil is an awkward, strange little boy, who finds life on the island quite different to the one he spent with his mother. Both have interesting stories to tell.
The book is wonderfully descriptive : it's so easy to imagine life on board the ship and on the island. Beautifully written, and hauntingly sad at times, with a little bit of humour thrown in, this is a novel I really enjoyed and would thoroughly recommend.
In 1628, Mayken embarks on a long voyage on the doomed Dutch vessel Batavia, to live with a father she has never met. More than three hundred years later, Gil is set to begin a new life with his reclusive and unpopular grandfather on Beacon Island (Batavia's Graveyard) off the coast of Western Australia. The two children have quite different characters : Mayken is a fiesty, inquisitive young lady who finds adventure during the voyage, most of it below decks where she makes some very special friends. Gil is an awkward, strange little boy, who finds life on the island quite different to the one he spent with his mother. Both have interesting stories to tell.
The book is wonderfully descriptive : it's so easy to imagine life on board the ship and on the island. Beautifully written, and hauntingly sad at times, with a little bit of humour thrown in, this is a novel I really enjoyed and would thoroughly recommend.