Lost Children of the Far Islands by Emily Raabe

Author:Emily Raabe [Raabe, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-97497-6
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2014-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

Leo opened the book. The inside was in complete contrast to the simple brown cover. Color seemed to leap off the page and flood the room. The Book of the Folk was written on the first page in a thick, glowing gold script that blazed against a vivid blue background like rays of sun lighting a morning sky. Dark green vines twined around the letters, with bright orange poppy-like flowers bursting out against the green. The vines reached down below the letters to meet a navy sea splashed here and there with frothy white breakers. The flowers moved on the vines, as though in a gentle wind, bowing and bending toward the sea. And wherever one of the blooms touched the surface of the sea, it disappeared and was replaced with the sleek, dark-eyed head of a seal.

“It’s beautiful,” Gus whispered, her fear forgotten. She reached out to touch the picture, but Leo was already turning the page.

The book told the story of the Folk. Leo and Gus read about their coming, so long ago now that the time was lost to history. They read about the laws of the Folk. For the Folk, when you are twelve, you are an adult. When you are ten, you are a child. But when you are eleven, you are in the changing year, neither child nor adult. It is the year that the Folk children begin to Turn without assistance, and from then on they lead a life split between the land and the sea. But any Folk who completely leave the sea lose their connection to the others and can no longer Turn.

“Mom,” Gus said, feeling a pang of sadness for their mother, for what she had had to sacrifice to make a life with their father.

The book talked about the other creatures of the sea who lived in harmony with the Folk. The dark-haired finfolk, and the singing mermaids who sometimes fell in love with humans and took them to live underwater with them forever. There were also the carnivorous water ponies, the kelpies. They were wild creatures, and dangerous. The seals gave them a wide berth. But occasionally one of the Folk in human form would tame one of the wild ponies and ride it over the foam, only to flee from the same creature when back in its seal form.

Leo turned the pages carefully as schools of fish appeared and disappeared and birds shrieked and dove and flapped away carrying struggling silver bodies in their claws. They read about an island where many Folk lived, sometimes as humans, sometimes as seals.

“It’s Loup Marin!” Gus whispered. She recognized the description of the broad, flat meadow that sat at the top of the island, in which a semicircle of thirteen tidy cottages was said to face the sea. They read about rocky outcroppings covered with shining seals, sheer rock cliffs that dropped into coves, women who combed their long dark hair in the sun as children with round brown eyes ran naked in the surf, laughing.

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