Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

1981 Newbery Medal Winner

Ratings Explanation

Language:  Profanities (hell, damn, the Lord’s name in vain, hellfire & damnation). The Captain swears and says “I be damned.”

Violence:  The grandmother smacks Louise hard on the side of her head with a heavy Bible.

Sexual Content:  A description of crabs sexually maturing and then mating. Louise, who is 13, is attracted to the Captain, who is 70. She hugs him tightly and feels stirrings inside of her. Looking at his hands does “wild things to the secret places of my body…” The grandmother thinks the Captain craves her and says “he wants to get in my bed with me in it.” Louise and her sister discuss an old couple’s marriage and sex life: “…they’re both too old to bother with that.” The grandmother frequently quotes Bible verses about wanton women and whores.

Adult Themes:  The Captain offers wine to teenagers. Louise says that “if alcohol had been available, I would have become a drunk.” She moves to Kentucky and comments that on Saturday nights in that small town, the men get drunk and beat their wives. An 18-year-old pregnant woman is beaten often by her drunken husband.

Synopsis

Sarah Louise Bradshaw is turning 13 the year World War II breaks out and changes life for people on her tiny island in the Chesapeake Bay. Theirs is a small fishing and crabbing community where everyone knows each other. Everyone also knows that Louise’s twin sister, Caroline, is the beautiful and favored one while Louise is plain and untalented. She finds solace on the water with her best friend Call, a homely and slow-witted boy, and with Captain Wallace, an old fisherman who returns to the island after many years away. Her cruel grandmother compares the girls to the Biblical brothers Jacob and Esau. She takes pleasure in taunting Louise by quoting from the Bible, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated,” only deepening Louise’s resentment for Caroline. When a severe storm destroys the Captain’s home and he moves in temporarily with her family, Louise is confused by her strong attraction to the old man. When he marries an invalid old woman on the island, Louise suffers her first hearbreak. As time passes, Caroline leaves the island to follow a singing career and Louise is left to hunt crab with her father and bear her grandmother’s constant criticism. Eventually she discovers the courage to leave home and make her own way, pursuing a life as a midwife and settling down in the Appalachian Mountains, far away from the island home that both nurtured and tormented her.

Sometimes Newbery Winners are unusual choices, and in my opinion this is one of them. There are long, detailed descriptions of the island and the tedious life of crab hunting. There are Louise’s incessant comparisons of her own insecurities to her sister’s beauty and merits. I realize the point is for the reader to patiently watch her finally come into her own, but she never quite gets there and it sounds a lot like whining. By the book’s end, I didn’t feel Louise was content with the woman she had become or see a resolution to the bitter relationship with her twin. However, I did sympathize for her and like most people, can understand the sibling rivalry. But I found her crush on the grandfatherly Captain rather bizarre–especially in a children’s book. There is also a strange bit at the end when Louise, now a midwife, delivers a woman’s twins and describes in detail nursing one of the babies at her own breast. The symbolism, I suppose, is this: validating her own existence and overcoming trials, but a younger audience might find that scene a little weird. (I know my daughter would.) Overall, I don’t recommend this to the 8-11 year old crowd. I would suggest a minimum age of middle school.