Sea urchins!
Back to the New Adventure
by Trevor Atkins
Coquitlam: Silverpath Publishing, 2024
$14.95 / 9781989459041
Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic
*
When we last saw Emma Sharpe, in The Day the Pirates Went Mad, she’d gone from bad (her parents locked in Newgate, a debtor’s prison) to iffy (as a ship’s stowaway) to not too shabby at all (adventures on the high sea, camaraderie aboard the New Adventure, treasure for the plundering). But, alas, she then suffered a major setback in the form of the titular madness, the possible result of a pirate’s hoard that was cursed.
Trevor Atkins’ follow up, Back to the New Adventure, opens ominously with a chapter named “Beached.” Emma is missing part of her ear (thanks to a vulture-like caracara bird). Plus, she seems to be alone, after being washed up on an unknown shore—on what appears to be an unoccupied island somewhere in the Caribbean.
Nothing if not a level-headed and resilient young teen Emma speaks to herself (to determine the clarity of her thought) and begins to hatch a plan. Fear and apathy play no part in her outlook.
In no time she spots a sprawled body, which turns out to be Jack, the cabin boy of the New Adventure and her friend. Though Jack has a dislocated shoulder, he’s far from dead. As the twosome begins to explore and search out food, Atkins surveys Emma’s recent history, including her return to England, where she paid off her parents’ debts and purchased a farm for them before getting antsy and feeling landlocked. Soon enough, this “adventurous daughter” was sailing for the West Indies, where local skirmishes spilling over from the War of the Spanish Succession—and of course privateers—made for treacherous waters.
On the sun-baked island, meanwhile, Emma and Jack get creative about surviving; they also begin to wonder about another shipwrecked soul who might be lurking on the island,
For kids reading (or listening to the book being read to them), the Coquitlam-based author is not spinning an adventure in the Indiana Jones or Jack Sparrow vein. Back to the New Adventure has strands of Girl Guides/Boy Scouts DNA in its makeup.
With food and a way off the island on the minds of Emma and Jack, practical mysteries—how to find food other than coconuts (“I wonder how fat rat tastes,” Emma asks), how to build a raft—are the immediate cases to solve. Still, they sense, there’s evidence that another person is nearby and observing them. Friend or foe? They not sure. Brooding a bit, Emma quietly dwells on another concern: how can she exact the revenge that she’s developed a taste for?
With the arrival of pirates—characters that bring to mind comical villains: the Fratelli family in The Goonies and Captain Shakespeare’s crew in Stardust—Emma and Jack sense new challenges. Better yet, for these self-described “sea urchins” (as opposed to mere “street urchins”): new opportunities. But, first, this “fine pair of starvelings,” as one pirate calls Emma and Jack, have to outsmart, outwit, and outplay sabre-wielding adults who are bigger, older, and, certainly, more experienced.
(For adults curious—and apprehensive—about the pirates’ legendary propensity for rape and plunder, rest assured that treasure-hunting and heavy drinking are the primary vices of Atkins’ “collection of cutthroats.” There’s bloodshed, true, but the story for middle grade kids remains chaste from start to finish.)
From there the novel introduces new characters—a Dickensian assortment and perhaps too many for young readers—and a lengthy series (the novel suffers a bit from ‘middle-itis’) of colourful pitstops in the pirate’s havens of the Caribbean as Emma, with Jack in tow, seeks answers about the aftermath of the event that led to her being marooned weeks earlier. All the while, she’s figuring out the nuts and bolts of her revenge scheme; to a lesser degree, Emma contemplates the ethics of said revenge. Circa 2025, Emma would be in therapy; in Atkins’ 1704, though, knife battles, duels, betrayals, and violent power struggles are just a Tuesday afternoon.
Atkins closes the novel with Emma face to face with the consequences of her need for vengeance that has now been acted upon. She’s broken down and pitiful, “feeling empty and regretful.” Moments later, however, she’s smiling and readying for a voyage to Bermuda. Another adventure awaits Emma and her seafarer family. Moral quandaries be damned, the sea beckons. Anyhow, there’s plenty of time to think about actions and consequences—or wrong and right—in 1705, when Emma is fifteen.
[Editor’s note: The royalties from both of the books in Trevor Atkins’ Emma Sharpe’s Adventures series are donated to BC Children’s Hospital Foundation.]
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My Two-Faced Luck, the fifth novel by Salt Spring Islander Brett Josef Grubisic, published in 2021 with Now or Never Publishing, is reviewed here by Geoffrey Morrison. A previous novel, Oldness; or, the Last-Ditch Efforts of Marcus O (2018), was reviewed by Dustin Cole. [Editorial note: A BCR editor, Brett has reviewed books by Lee et al., Kung Jaadee and Kristen Pendreigh, Sam Wiebe, Maureen Young, Daniel Anctil, Adam Welch, Andrea Bennett, Patrick Grace, Cole Nowicki, Tania De Rozario, John Metcalf (ed.), Brandon Reid, Beatrice Mosionier, Hazel Jane Plante, Sam Wiebe, Joseph Kakwinokanasum, Chelene Knight, Lyndsie Bourgon, Gurjinder Basran, and Don LePan for BCR.]
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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