STRONG LIKE THE SEA

A tween in Hawaii is challenged to overcome her fear of the ocean.

Alex, 12, lives near the ocean in Laie on Oahu, but a traumatic experience has left her unwilling to set foot in the water despite her friends’ coaxing. She misses her mom, an intelligence analyst on a Navy submarine, who likes to challenge Alex with fun ciphers and codes. Her latest challenge takes Alex out of her comfort zone; to solve it, she’ll have to confront her fears to find the clues her mom has secreted. Alex’s busy, mainland-born dad and the Japanese American Tanakas—her mother’s hānai, or informal adoptive parents—provide occasional clues, but Alex must work out the answers. While the remarkable Hawaiian landscape, flora and fauna, and cultural features (racial and ethnic particulars excepted) are exhaustively and accurately detailed, the story falls flat. Alex is more tour guide than protagonist, translating Hawaiian and Pidgin words for nonlocal readers and slowing the action to describe or explain points of interest. With four wise adults guiding her, she’s seldom at a loss, and it’s her desperate struggles alone in the powerful ocean that make readers care. With details unspecified, Alex and her family read as White.

The real star of this didactic tale is its alluring setting.