CORAL CRUNCH

Danger lurks beneath the depths for a young aquanaut and her new free-diving friend in Jeansonne’s YA adventure novel.

Fourteen-year-old Jeanbeau Labourde and 12-year-old Addie Lyons meet in pretty dire circumstances: Jeanbeau, a free-diver and spearfisherman from the U.S. Virgin Islands community Frenchtown, makes the mistake of diving for too long while exploring the reef near Capella Island and blacks out. Luckily, Addie and her family, aquanauts living in a submarine-like home conducting research at various depths, find the young diver and rescue him. Friendship, or perhaps something more, immediately blooms between Jeanbeau and Addie. More danger arises, however, when the ne’er-do-well Joe Brooks enters the picture. Jeanbeau, who lives in the same town with Brooks, is immediately suspicious, noting that “trouble always seems to come around when Joe does.” And trouble does come when Joe’s drug smuggling operation, which involves stashing contraband in an old shipwreck, is threatened by a family of nosy scientists (Addie and her parents) poking around in there. In simple prose and fast-paced chapters, the author spins a yarn filled with drama and excitement. In the midst of all the action-packed plotting, Jeansonne also finds time to educate his readers about aquatic life, scuba diving, and—in a very prescient scene where Addie and her father find leaked diesel fuel—the hazardous effects human activities have on marine ecosystems. While some of the story elements, particularly those related to the smuggling operation, may be too mature for some young readers, the book does an excellent job balancing high-stakes peril and educational content for middle-grade and YA audiences. The narrative drops the ball when it comes to Joe—his character seems underdeveloped, and his speech can veer into stereotypical patois (dropping letters and saying “da” instead of “the” in Caribbean dialect). Joe aside, this is a fun, splashy plunge.

A fast-paced undersea thriller with an important environmental message.