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Children's Fiction Europe

Avis Dolphin

by (author) Frieda Wishinsky

illustrated by Willow Dawson

Publisher
Groundwood Books Ltd
Initial publish date
Apr 2015
Category
Europe, Boats, Ships & Underwater Craft, General
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781554984893
    Publish Date
    Apr 2015
    List Price
    $16.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781554984909
    Publish Date
    Mar 2015
    List Price
    $9.99

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Where to buy it

Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels

  • Age: 9 to 12
  • Grade: 4 to 7
  • Reading age: 9 to 12

Description

Inspired by the story of actual passengers on the ill-fated Lusitania, this is a novel of great adventure and suspense, including graphic novel-style illustrations.

Avis Dolphin doesn’t want to leave New York and sail to England on the Lusitania. War is raging in Europe, and the Germans threaten to sink the ship. Avis is lonely and afraid until she meets a kindly professor whose stories of a magical island help her face an uncertain future.

When the Lusitania is attacked, Avis must draw on all her newfound strength to cope with the confusion, terror and despair. How can she survive the sudden devastation of the ship? Will the people she cares about, especially the professor, live through the horror and danger?

The immediacy of Frieda Wishinsky’s voice will engage readers in this thrilling story based on real events. They will identify with Avis and Professor Holbourn as they grapple with a stubborn captain, encounter German stowaways and contend with the feud between Avis’s two cabin mates. In an atmosphere of growing anxiety, readers will be glued to the dramatic events as they unfold and the surprising fate of the people they have come to know.

Willow Dawson’s art depicts the stories the professor tells Avis in enchanting graphic-novel form. They provide a riveting magical element to the story, creating a story-within-a-story.

Like Avis, readers will fall in love with Foula and will dream of the island long after they have reached the last page of this exciting story.

 

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.1
Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.7
Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of a text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, poem).

About the authors

 

Frieda Wishinsky
est l'auteure de plus de 40 livres pour enfants. Parmi les ouvrages déjà
parus, on peut citer, entre autres,

Ounga Bounga, Tu es méchante Lily-Ange!, Le sac à main de la reine,
Canada en vedette

et les romans de la série Catastrophe! Elle vit à Toronto, en
Ontario.

 

FRIEDA WISHINSKY has written over seventy books for children, including Oonga Boonga; You're Mean, Lily Jean; the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award winner Please, Louise!; the middle-grade series Survival, and the non-fiction books Explorers Who Made It . . . or died trying; Everything but the Kitchen Sink and Colossal Canada. Frieda lives in Toronto, Ontario with her husband. Visit her online at www.friedawishinsky.com.

Frieda Wishinsky's profile page

Award winning author and illustrator Willow Dawson’s books include Ghost Limb, Hyena In Petticoats, The Big Green Book of the Big Blue Sea with Helaine Becker, Lila and Ecco’s Do-It-Yourself Comics Club, No Girls Allowed with Susan Hughes, and the upcoming The Wolf-Birds. Her books have been supported by the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Willow Dawson also teaches Creating Comics and Graphic Novels at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. She lives in Toronto.

Willow Dawson's profile page

Awards

  • Short-listed, The Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature, Children's / Young Adult
  • Commended, CCBC Best Books for Children and Teens
  • Short-listed, Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People

Editorial Reviews

Together, Frieda Wishinsky and Willow Dawson tell an incredible story of unlikely friendship, travelling during wartime, and, most importantly, hope.

CM Magazine

Avis’s unforgettable journey of friendship, courage, tragedy, and hope will captivate and resonate with readers.

National Reading Campaign

Wishinsky incorporates a wealth of contextual information into the story.

Publishers Weekly

Readers will be swept up in Avis’s excitement about the boat mechanics, gourmet food, and people-watching.

School Library Journal

This child’s view of the event with eye-catching illustrations is an accessible take on the historic event.

Booklist

Moving and inventive . . . a vivid and relatable account of a not-so-distant tragedy.

Quill & Quire

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