Take a look at this month’s book review by Tara Swartzendruber!
I stumbled across “The House in the Cerulean Sea” by T.J. Klune in the York library while looking for a book to take on a trip. As a lover of fantasy novels, the premise of “dangerous” magical youth on a magical island was appealing to me, but I had no idea how much depth there would be to this book.
Klune’s book is written from the perspective of Linus Baker, a by-the-book state employee who is sent to investigate and report on an orphanage on the island of Marsyas housing six of the most dangerous magical children. Baker, in his attempt to maintain the rules, ends up being quite a funny, clever character who learns a lot about life during his time on the island.
The children in the orphanage have been scorned by the non-magical community because they are different. The town near where they live is openly hostile towards them, and the government departments that are supposed to care for them have other ideas in mind.
The children’s caretaker, Arthur Pernassus, and the caretaker of the Island, an undocumented magical sprite – Zoe Chaplewhite, will do anything to protect the children and to teach them how to love themselves and others.
This story digs deeply into the root of accepting others for who they are, love versus hate, tolerance versus intolerance, and the need for every being to belong. It does so in a way that the reader almost doesn’t recognize that he/she/they is reinforcing (or learning) that everyone matters for just WHO they are.
