THE NIGHT SHIP

The lives of two 9-year-olds—one in 1628 and the other in 1989—intersect across time in this moving examination of the real-life wreck of the Batavia.

Mayken sets sail from Haarlem with her nursemaid, Imke, to join a father she's never met following her mother’s untimely death. The ship they book passage on is loaded with riches and named for their destination: Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East Indies. Lonely and precocious, Mayken quickly becomes fascinated by the parts of the ship hidden from rich passengers, which she dubs “the Below World.” She begins a secret, second life as the cabin boy Obbe, befriending a soldier, a sailor, a kitchen boy, and the ship’s barber-surgeon while trying to hunt down the eel-like monster Bullebak, whom she believes is making Imke sick. Almost four centuries later, the newly orphaned Gil moves to Beacon Island, the fishing community off the coast of Australia where his grandfather Joss lives and the archaeological site of the Batavia shipwreck. Gil’s unusual upbringing has left him alienated from his peers, but, like Mayken, his kindness slowly earns him adult friends and protectors, and his curiosity drives him to uncover the island’s secrets. Kidd shows a keen understanding of how thin the boundary between the magic and the mundane is for children and treats their understanding of the world with seriousness and compassion. Her prose has an arresting simplicity that evokes fairy tales, and the echoes between Mayken’s and Gil’s experiences are treats for the reader to discover.

An ambitious, melancholy work of historical fiction that offers two wondrous young protagonists for the price of one.