Sea Legs (Jules Bakes)

Sea Legs

Jules Bakes, illustrations by Niki Smith
Scholastic
Fiction, MG General Fiction/Graphic Novel
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION:

Living aboard a boat would be a dream come true for most kids, but sometimes Janey gets tired of being adrift her whole life. Once in a while they drop anchor in an American port long enough for Mom and Dad to earn money, and she gets to go to school and make friends, but soon enough the red sails on the Merimaid rise and it's off across the sea again. Janey's determined to keep in touch with Rae, the best and closest friend she's ever made, but phone calls are expensive and letters sporadic and hard to mail. Then, at dock in the Bahamas, Janey meets teenager Astrid. Like Janey, Astrid lives aboard a boat, but otherwise they're nothing alike, challenging Janey to rethink her own life and her place in the world.

REVIEW:

This was an impulse borrow via the library and the Hoopla app to change up genres a bit; it's been a while since I read a graphic novel, especially one not in the fantasy/sci-fi genres, and I was looking for sea-related ideas for a personal project. Inspired by the author's own childhood aboard a boat built by her parents, Sea Legs is a coming-of-age tale as young Janey learns to navigate the difficult waters of an unusual childhood and different ways people can be friends. She loves her parents, and there are many wonderful things about life aboard the Merimaid - starlight, flying fish, colorful new places and amazing new foods - but sometimes it's tough when all she wants is friends she can see every day and a teacher who isn't her own mother.
Astrid is almost everything Janey is not: confident to the point of arrogance, cynical, (apparently) fearless, and independent to a fault. Their friendship is more a matter of proximity and a dearth of other minors on the docks than anything else; most other boat-dwellers are adults. Sometimes Janey resents Astrid's dismissive attitude and how she treats the younger girl like she's silly or stupid, but she also wants to be like Astrid... not seeing (at least not at first) how all the qualities she admires are the result of a harder life than Janey can imagine. The fact that Astrid keeps coming back to hang out with Janey speaks to something Astrid needs in a friend, too, but can't say out loud, not even to herself. Even as they form a fragile, fractious, and unlikely bond, however, the shifting seasons and tides threaten to destroy everything. The seas are never still, and neither is a life lived on the water, but sometimes you can find something to carry with you when you go.
The story moves decently. The art is bright and full of tropical colors and exotic locales, bringing to life a bygone childhood and the wonders (and hardships) of growing up on a boat. I enjoyed it.

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