|
Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Book Award Nominees 2003 |
Connections | |||||||||||||
|
The year is 1799 and fourteen-year-old John Spencer is going to do something he has dreamed of doing. He will accompany his father from London on the brig Isle of Skye and go to sea for the first time. His father owns the ship and believes that John will discover the hardships aboard a ship and choose to follow in his footsteps as merchant and entrepreneur. But John loves the sea and sailing . . . until they reach the Cornwall coast. The wind is high, the sea is rough, and the night is as black as licorice. They will crash against the shore unless they can find shelter. Then they see a light, as if a ship is in a bay. They follow it to their peril! When John wakes, he is on the shore. Why had they wrecked? Why didn't the light lead them to safety? Is his father dead? Who are those people on the ridge? What is happening to poor Cringe at the water's edge? These are only a few questions John has to answer before he leaves the land of The Wreckers.
WORDS FOR THE WISE
Try to organize this list of words from the book into three categories. Some words have more than one meaning. Use the text in the story to help you figure out meanings. Keep a dictionary, thesaurus, or computer nearby. Know:: I know what it means Seen: I've seen this word before, but am not sure of its meaning. New:: I've never seen this word before.
Student Reviews Would you like to review this book? Click here? Other Books Like This One Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson The unforgettable story of Jim Hawkins who discovers the treasure map of an infamous old sea captain and goes to find it (along with the village doctor and squire). They are pursued by the captain's villainous crew. who will stop at nothing to find the treasure. The Smugglers by Iain Lawrence John Spencer is again the protagonist in this adventure-packed companion to The Wreckers. John is now 16 and takes a new ship The Dragon out to sea only to become embroiled in a smuggling adventure that taxes is power of reason. The Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle Fictional stories of pirates of the Spanish Main. Wonder where that is?
Illustration by Howard Pyle Student
Reviews Would you like to review this book?
|
BRIG More on The U.S.Brig Niagara (Above)
A cromlech features prominently in this story. A cromlech is a prehistoric burial mound much like the one below..
The Wreckers was also Nominated for the young reader's choice award in British Columbia The author lives on an island off the coast of British Columbia in Canada. He knows sailing and sailing terms and uses both to create an authentic atmosphere aboard a sailing vessel. His father helped him research the book. He visiting Cornwall and found documents about the people called wreckers who plundered ships that were wrecked off the coast. Have a Yen to Learn About Sailing? If you are not quite up on your sailing terms, turn to the book Learning to Sail by H. A. Calahan to help you understand the lingo. You might even want to learn to tie a sailor's knot or two. Learning to Sail by H. A. Calahan The Art of the Sailor: Knotting, Splicing and Ropework by Hervey Gerrett Smith The Art of Rigging by Captain George Biddlecombe
Cornwall is a peninsula on the south west coast of England. The town of Pendennis in the story does not exist, but all of the other places do. People in Cornwall were miners and fishermen in the time of this story. And wreckers did exist, but they were not so evil as the ones in this story. Look for Falmouth on the map above. See the jagged inlet going north toward Truro? This is where this story is set.
This rip-roaring adventure story is good for reading aloud or alone. Innocent characters live in an evil world in this book and many forms of evil manifest themselves: greed, gluttony, anger, envy. Treachery of all kinds including murder, maiming, theft, kidnapping, and deliberate deception confronts the protagonists. The innocent characters do not know whom to trust, but they instinctively recognize evil, and can and do overcome it. ACTIVITY (Students Plan a Brief Research Project) The anchor of reality is the genuine setting in Cornwall and the true-to-life descriptions of sailing. Sailing ships still stir the blood and young adventure wannabes may enjoy a brief research project on pirates, sailing ships, Cornwall, ancient cultures and ruins, shipwrecks and a myriad of other historical explorations, both savory and un. | |||||||||||||
Port
Isaac 
FOR
THE TEACHER