A TEAR IN THE OCEAN: A Reader & Educator Guide
Best Users: Librarians, Educators, Book Clubs
Best Audience: Children Grades 05-10
ABOUT THE GUIDE
In the guide, we explore what H.M. Bouwman’s original fairy tales can tell us about our world and ourselves.
The Reader & Educator Guide contains classroom and book club ideas to:
– Map the characters geographic and emotional journeys
– Teach fairy tales and the Hero’s Journey
– Make connections between the story and climate change
– Relate characters actions to that of teen activist Greta Thurber
– Create an art project of personal symbols
– Provide thematic writing and discussion prompts
This guide was a collaborative project between author and University of St. Thomas English Professor Heather Bouwman, author and former classroom teacher Ann Braden, and the children’s literature engagement folks at Curious City.
DOWNLOAD THE GUIDE
DOWNLOAD A Tear in the Ocean: Reader and Educator Guide (PDF)
REVISIT our materials for A Crack in the Sea
Illustrations © Yuko Shimizu
ABOUT THE BOOK
A Tear in the Ocean
By H. M. Bouwman
Illustrated by Yuko Shimizu
Published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons
ISBN-13: 9780399545221
Age Range: 10 – 13 Years
Putnam, the future king of Raftworld, wants more than anything to prove himself. When the water in the Second World starts to become salty and his father won’t do anything about it, Putnam sees his chance. He steals a boat and sneaks off toward the source of the salty water. He doesn’t know he has a stowaway onboard, an island girl named Artie.
Artie isn’t trying to save the world, she’s just trying to save herself. On the run from an abusive stepfather, Artie just wants a place to call home. Putnam isn’t the partner she would have chosen, but as the two face uncertainty and danger in their shared adventure, an extraordinary friendship forms.
Meanwhile, more than a hundred years in the past, Rayel is also on the run from Raftworld, escaping an arranged marriage she discovers is really a plot to kill her father. She’d planned to be gone just long enough to foil the plot, but once at sea and sailing ever southward, Rayel discovers she has an astonishing magical power that leads her to a new home and a sadness so deep it infects the world.
Told in alternating perspectives with Putnam and Artie traveling further and further into the uncharted southern sea—and Rayel, the key to the saltwater mystery, sailing the same sea in her own time—Putnam and Artie must put aside their differences and figure out why the sea is salty before it’s too late.
“An engaging and original coming-of-age story with an unpredictable and adventurous plot, sure to captivate middle-grade and middle-school fantasy buffs.” —Horn Book
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“Bouwman offers stories of loss, hope, perseverance, and the repercussions of severed platonic and familial bonds…Bouwman masterfully infuses old fairy tales and legends into her alternate-universe adventure, meticulously weaving times and storylines into a riveting plot. All three protagonists have brown skin. Shimizu’s energetic black-and-white illustrations add visual drama. A novel that will have readers reflecting on their own experiences of grief, longing, regret, survival, and overcoming.” —Kirkus Reviews
