"Alone on a Wide Wide Sea", by Michael Morpurgo

Orphaned in World War II, six-year-old Arthur is separated from his sister and sent to the other side of the world (Australia).  There his extraordinary journey continues as he and his friend Marty survive brutal captivity on a working farm, find a new family with the eccentric Aunty Meg and her animals, and discover their talent for designing yachts.  Sixty years later, Arthur’s daughter Allie sets sail single-handed in a yacht designed by her father, determined to find his long-lost sister in England.

“Alone on a Wide Wide Sea” is a very enjoyable book.  I felt a range of emotions and feelings as I got to know the characters and read about their adventures.  One particularly memorable event was when Arthur Hobhouse’s best friend Marty died; the story was described in such a vivid way that I found myself crying and empathising with Arthur as he tried to come to terms with his tragic loss.  Throughout the book, I felt as though I was actually there with the characters; Michael Morpurgo is superb at creating an atmosphere.

Arthur Hobhouse is my favourite character: I felt I really got to know him as he described his journey and adventures.  He is the sort of person I would like to have as a friend because he is caring, loyal and strong.

I love the way Michael Morpurgo brings situations to life; he is a master at creating powerful descriptions, which draw the reader in and stay in the memory.  Through his use of simple language, he captures the moment brilliantly, as illustrated by the following extracts:

I could imagine how very young orphaned children must have felt to be leaving England, headed for an unknown world:

“There were dozens of us on the ship, boys and girls.  We were off to Australia, but it might as well have been the moon.”

I got a real sense of how close Arthur and Marty were; as best friends, they were inseparable, having shared life’s experiences:

“We seemed to know instinctively what the other was thinking, what he was about do. … We’d shared so much.  We’d been shaped by the same teacher.”

When Marty died, Arthur’s devastation at the loss of his best friend comes across vividly; as I empathised with him, I found myself crying:

“They took me to see him in the hospital.  It wasn’t Marty.  It was just his body.  I felt nothing then.  I tried to feel something; I stayed there with him for hours.  But you can’t feel emptiness.”

At Marty’s funeral, Arthur recited a few verses from the poem “The Rime of The Ancient Mariner” (by Samuel Taylor Coleridge), ending with the line Marty loved most of all: “Alone on a wide, wide sea”; when he explains why he read it, the reader understands why Michael Morpurgo chose this line as the title for the book:

“I’m glad I did that, because that poem is not just about a sea voyage, it’s about the journey through life, and about the loneliness of that journey.  It was the right thing to read.”

The description of Aunty Meg’s death is also powerful; the repetition of the word “sleep” conveys a sense of peacefulness – it was as if she just drifted away:

“She’d gone to sleep, but it was the long sleep, the final sleep.”

After Aunty Meg’s funeral, Arthur’s loneliness is clear; even though he is much older now, he feels the same sense of loss as he did when he was orphaned at the age of six:

“As I walked away I felt like an orphan all over again, a grown-up one maybe, but an orphan just the same.”

I would definitely recommend this book to both boys and girls aged 10+; anyone who reads “Alone on a Wide Wide Sea” will not want to put it down.

Michael Morpurgo is my favourite author of all time!  I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I did!  I give it a ***** rating.