Brace yourself to be swept up into this bundle of pages like a boat out to sea, which is, in my view what this book is all about, a ship on the sea.  When Arthur Hobhouse is thrust into Australia, without his sister Kitty, who becomes nothing but a hazy memory, he leads a life tormented by Mr. ‘Piggy Bacon’.  Arthur is desperate to escape from the enclosure in which one of his friends, Wes, tragically dies. Soon Arthur finds a home, and not just a house, to stay in, with the energetic Megs Molloy.

I found Megs Molloy a very interesting person. Michael Morpurgo has some how found a way to give me the impression that Megs is young, though she is actually not 20 any more! I wonder if Michael Morpurgo meant to give that feeling, or not.

Soon Arthur marries an always cheerful nurse, Zita. Together, they make their daughter, Allie, who later sails to England on a search for Kitty Hobhouse, Arthur’s long lost sister, when Arthur tragically dies.

One of the most special things about this tale is that Michael Morpurgo has managed to make a character seem a different age than they really are. A downfall though is that not a lot of time has been used to make a character more realistic, and there is almost no descriptions of a character that is not main character’s feelings. On the whole, I really enjoyed this and love the fact that adventure is mixed with tragedy. I really recommend this for anyone at any time.