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CM . . .
. Volume XIX Number 33. . . .April 26, 2013
excerpt:
While in Thailand with his mom, visiting his soon-to-be stepfather and stepsister, Mai, Luke experiences the unexpected – a tsunami hits Patong Beach. Luke and Mai survive the first two waves, holding on to branches and clambering through the streets, while trying to avoid the debris the tsunami has washed up and strewn about. Mai and Luke search the streets for their parents, becoming more desperate and disheartened as they see more and more people that did not survive the tsunami’s impact. While helping others search through buildings reduced to rubble, the pair of soon-to-be siblings search for food, water and other supplies, and they are soon joined by Kasem, a local to Patong Beach, who helps in their search for their parents. The three children then travel towards a meeting place where families have been posting pictures of missing loved ones. Upon their arrival, they begin combing the hotels and makeshift hospitals and the walls of photos others have posted, searching for their parents. Debbie Ouellet’s Wave is part of the “HIP Xtreme” series, designed for reluctant readers from grade six to high school who are reading at a grade three level. As such, the composition of the book has been specifically designed with the needs of these readers in mind. This book is noticeably suspenseful, the suspense created in part, by the short sentences, the plot’s fast-pace, minimal descriptive passages and short, manageable chapters. The book is simplistic in many ways: in sentence structure and length and in word choice. Furthermore, as a means to encourage and foster readers’ confidence, there is a great deal of word repetition. Black-and-white illustrations appear every few pages, serving as picture support, allowing readers to visualize the characters and situations. Dialogue between characters was also basic, yet authentic in accurately capturing slang and language used by teenagers. While problems and obstacles are quickly and easily resolved, surprisingly, the lack of depth within the plot does not deter from the reader’s attachment and commitment to the characters’ outcomes.
Highly Recommended. Nicole Dalmer is a recent graduate of the Master of Library and Information Studies program and is now a Public Service Librarian at the Herbert T. Coutts Education and Physical Education Library at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, AB.
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Accompanying the book is a teacher’s guide, written by Lori Jamison. Designed for both small group and whole class instruction, this guide is full of useful resources for teachers, including plot synopses, facts about tsunamis, and a variety of classroom exercises, quizzes and handouts that incorporate different plot elements and characters of Wave.