Adrift

by Tanya Guerrero

Overview

From Tanya Guerrero, the author of All You Knead Is Love and How to Make Friends with the Sea, comes Adrift, an upper middle grade contemporary story of survival and grief about two biracial Filipino cousins whose resilience is tested when one of them is lost at sea.

Cousins Coral and Isa are so close that they're practically siblings; their mothers are sisters, and the two girls grew up on the same small island. When Coral and her parents leave on a months-long sea voyage amid the islands of Indonesia, Isa is devastated that they'll be kept apart, and the two vow to write to each other no matter what.

Then the unthinkable happens, and Coral's boat capsizes at sea, where her parents vanish. Washed up on a deserted island, alone and wracked by grief, she must find the strength within to survive, and find her way back home. Meanwhile, Isa is still on Pebble Island, the only one holding out hope that her beloved cousin is still alive.

Told in alternating points of view, this is a powerful story of loss and hope, love and family—and the unexpected resilience of the human spirit.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374389659
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	09/06/2022
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	26,059
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 5.70(h) x 1.20(d)
Lexile:	690L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Tanya Guerrero is the author of Adrift, All You Knead is Love, and How to Make Friends with the Sea. Filipino and Spanish by birth, she has been fortunate enough to call three countries home: the Philippines, Spain, and the United States. Currently, she lives in a shipping container home in the suburbs of Manila with her husband, daughter, and a menagerie of rescued cats and dogs. In her free time, she grows her own food, bakes bread, and reads.

Editorial Reviews

10/03/2022

Family serves as the heart of this tender novel, which follows two tightly bonded cousins across a devastating separation. The daughters of two Filipina sisters married to two white-cued American brothers, “Star Sisters” Coral and Isa have been inseparable since birth, raised together on Pebble Island, N.Y. But a crisis strikes during Coral’s family sailing trip, when an earthquake in Indonesia causes a tidal wave that capsizes their boat. No survivors are reported, but Isa, unwilling to give up hope, is certain that Coral is alive: “I can feel her presence inside me, in my bones, in my gut, in my heart.” And she’s right: Coral is stranded alone on an island with a survival kit and a few days’ rations, attempting to endure until help arrives. Employing the cousins’ alternating first-person voices to portray their situations and their love across space and time, Guerrero (All You Knead Is Love) movingly portrays the toll of resilience, sorrow, and survival, seamlessly including Filipino cultural references throughout. Ages 8–12. Agent: Wendy Schmalz, Wendy Schmalz Agency. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

2022-05-25
Stranded on a deserted island, a 13-year-old struggles to survive while her cousin refuses to give up hope that she’s alive.

Coral and Isa Bituin-Rousseau may be cousins, but they’re as close as siblings: Their Filipina mothers are sisters who married brothers, the girls’ White American fathers. They grew up together in Pebble Island, New York, eating lobster Isa’s father caught and their mothers’ Filipino cooking. The two are rarely apart except when Coral and her parents go on one of their journeys to see the world. Following an earthquake and tidal wave while they are sailing through the Indonesian archipelago, Coral is thrown overboard and stranded on an uninhabited island. With the help of survival skills learned from her father and mysterious gifts of freshly killed small game, Coral keeps herself alive. But how long will it be before rescue comes? Isa, meanwhile, is left alone on Pebble Island, with parents who seem willing to abandon hope and a newly introduced cousin who Isa can’t help but feel is meant to replace Coral. Partly a survival story and partly an exploration of coping with grief, heavy topics are touched upon with a soft hand. Coral’s struggles and triumphs offer an introduction to the wilderness adventure genre, but more experienced readers may find her a little too lucky. Isa’s story serves as a nice counterpoint to Coral’s, as she struggles with moving on and forming new relationships.

A survival story with some guardrails still in place. (Adventure. 9-13)

Kirkus Reviews

"Guerrero adroitly unfolds this tale of grief and triumph by showing a visceral story of determination alongside the effects a tragedy has on the people left behind. This is a stirring page-turner that will move readers to appreciate the people in their lives." —Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

"A pulse-pounding story of survival and friendship. It's not easy being shipwrecked... but worrying and waiting at home is no picnic either. If you like survival stories, you're going to love this book!" —Nick Courage, author of Storm Blown and Snow Struck

"Adrift isn't just an exciting survival story about a girl trying to survive alone on an island. It's a layered, emotional adventure about a child's fortitude, the power of family, and the soul's unstoppable will to return to those we love most." —Dusti Bowling, bestselling and award-winning author of Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus

"Hatchet meets The Thing About Jellyfish in this riveting literary page-turner about survival, friendship, grief and hope. Readers will love this classic in the making." —April Henry, New York Times bestselling author of Girl, Stolen and Two Truths and a Lie

"This is an insightful and heartfelt book that balances a strong representation of Filipino culture with a heartfelt message about how it is okay to not be okay." —Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (BCCB)

From the Publisher