Review
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Title: Strong Like the Sea
Author: Wendy S. Swore
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Genre: Middle-grade Fiction
Year Published: 2021
Number of Pages: 281
Binding: Hard Cover
ISBN13: 978-1-62972-902-2
Price: $16.99
Reviewed by Sherry Ann Miller for the Association for Mormon Letters
Alexis, the heroine in Wendy S. Swore’s new middle-grade novel, Strong Like the Sea, is a twelve-year-old girl with a charming personality. The story is told in first person, from Alexis’ point of view, which adds to the heroine’s charm. I have to admit that Wendy S. Swore wrote an endearing character I truly loved getting to know.
Alexis’ mother is a code breaker, working as a civilian aboard a United States Navy submarine. Before Alexis’ mom leaves for each trip, she sets up elaborate detective-like hunts, using codes and cyphers for each case, as a means to help Alexis develop her own code-breaking skills and to keep their mother/daughter bond growing.
Throughout most of the story in Strong Like the Sea, Alexis is simply called Alex, and occasionally an Al slips into the name-shortening scenario.
Alex’s father is a teacher and a scuba instructor who has a rigid way of managing life by making and strictly adhering to calendar schedules, much to Alex’s dismay. Her father means well, but to a free spirit like Alex, planning and scheduling down to the very last minute sometimes feels too restrictive for her.
Fortunately, Alex has some good friends who help her out if she gets stuck in a clue or in life. They help her escape any hopeless situations that may arise, whether in finding clues or solving enigmas left by her mom or in managing life as a young girl surrounded by water with an intense fear of it. In Strong Like the Sea, Alex’s friends add a special zing to her life, and I found myself liking them equally as well as I did Alex.
Alex is sent on one detective trail after another by her mother’s clues until she finds a treasure, of sorts, at the conclusion of each hunt. Until. . . one day Alex is given the biggest treasure hunt of her life by her mom, and right in the middle of solving it, her mother’s submarine disappears in a typhoon near Japan and her grumpy Uncle, who Alex learns is actually quite ill, is also in need of some serious assistance. But, saving her uncle will mean Alex must face her worst fears. . . ocean currents and moray eels. How she faces that challenge is truly admirable. I’m sure middle-grade readers will be thrilled to read about Uncle’s rescue.
While Strong Like the Sea by Wendy S. Swore is well written, it is not as well planned. Because the father in the story is a man with great organizational skills, I had hoped the author would have plotted her novel well. However, for the first third of the book, there is hardly any tension besides the little treasure hunts Alex is sent on by her mom. Therefore, there is little reason to keep on reading unless the reader adores solving puzzles. Perhaps the entire story would have been better served by beginning it around page 80, with a brief description of Alexis, then plunging right into her mother’s dilemma.
Ms. Swore would receive greater praise from this reviewer had she included a glossary of the words used in Strong Like the Sea that describe what certain Hawaiian words and phrases mean. Here are only a very few of far too many within the story:
Lumpia;
Shaka;
Keiki;
kine;
li hing mui,
pani popo
oli
mele
etc.
For the most part, children who live in Hawaii would know what many of these words mean. For other children, not so much. These words might give a hint of Hawaiian flavor to the overall story, but most children will not know their meanings.
My biggest disappointment came in the “Author’s Note” at the end of the story. In the note, Swore writes, “If readers would like to learn more about any local words or foods I’ve included in my story, I suggest visiting local Hawaiian websites and resources.” This reviewer disagrees with the author’s suggestion. It would have been much more pleasant to refer to a glossary of terms at the end of the book so the story could be read with as little disruption as possible. Particularly since this is a book about a twelve-year-old girl, written for middle-grade readers.
In my younger years, this rule was emphasized repeatedly in every writing class I ever took: a truly great story should not impede the reader’s forward motion. Stopping every ten pages to research words was not a happy experience for me, and I truly appreciated that rule and why it should be strictly followed.
While the puzzles, codes, and clues were interesting, the predominant emotion in the story involved getting the mom and Alexis back together again. I admit to being somewhat discouraged that I didn’t get to read about their joyful reunion except for a few lines at the end of the last chapter to say mom was home. This could be a disappointment to any reader who had invested several hours researching words within the pages of a book.
On a scale of one to five stars, I would give Strong Like the Sea, all by itself without all the frustrating word searches, 4.5 stars. Sadly, I would have to take back at least two of those stars for frustration at being unable to enjoy a novel intended for middle-graders due solely to the many words that I had to research on the Internet before I could proceed with the story. If Strong Like the Sea had not been such an interesting story, I would not have been nearly as frustrated. So, there is that.
Although I liked the premise behind Strong Like the Sea, and Alexis is a charming young character, there were too many interruptions for word searching, the story didn’t really suck me into it until about page 80, and I was disappointed not to read the actual reunion of mother and daughter. For these reasons, I am unable to recommend it without reservations. The reader should know there are flaws this reviewer could not overlook.