SOUTH SIDE OF THE SEA

Ford offers a time-hopping YA adventure about two teenage girls who form a close friendship, despite living more than three centuries apart.

In 2019 on the South Side of Chicago, Kalea is a 14-year-old Black girl who has her fair share of troubles. She’s getting poor grades in school, largely because of undiagnosed dyslexia, and her family seems to have no faith in her ability to improve; in addition, she regularly deals with harassment from racist cops. But after she begins hearing sounds of the ocean in her head, along with French-speaking crewmen aboard a ship, she gradually comes to realize that she has a strange, unexplainable connection with a girl from the distant past: Analicia DuMont, the 14-year-old White daughter of a captain of a ship—one that headed to the New World back in 1686. As the two girls come to accept their strange situation and get to know each other, they become the best of friends, and they help each other maneuver through their lives. Over the course of this novel, Ford effectively details the incredibly different cultures that his characters inhabit, and the wisdom that readers will glean from the girls’ interactions is profoundly moving—particularly when it comes to issues of gender and racial inequality. Ford shows Analicia’s life traveling on the Caribbean Sea to be harrowing—her father is killed, she’s kidnapped by pirates, and she must survive battles at sea—and Kalea’s modern-day existence is shown to be just as dangerous; one of her friends is shot and killed by police and her own life is endangered when she participates in a peaceful protest. The author also includes a bombshell plot twist at the end of the story that’s impressive.

A heartwarming fantasy tale that should appeal to young and old readers alike.