Beyond the Bright Sea

Lauren Wolk’s historical novel Beyond the Bright Sea (2017) takes place in 1925. Its narrator, 12-year-old Crow, was put to sea alone in a boat just hours after her birth. Now, she lives on the Elizabeth Islands off the coast of Massachusetts with the solitary painter who found her, Osh. As Crow searches for clues about her birth family and origins, she also strengthens bonds with Osh and the world she has grown up in. Full of drama and depth, Beyond the Bright Sea won the 2018 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction and numerous awards from organizations including NPR, Parent’s Magazine, and the New York Public Library.

This guide uses the edition published by Dutton Children’s Books, Penguin Young Readers Group.

Plot Summary

Crow lives with Osh in a cottage he built from salvaged wood, on a tiny island in the Elizabeths. They often go to the neighboring island of Cuttyhunk, home of their friend, Miss Maggie. Crow knows she was abandoned at birth and that Osh adopted her. She is also aware that the residents of Cuttyhunk treat her strangely, refusing to touch her or even allow her into school. When she learns they fear she came from Penikese, an island that once hosted a leper colony, she becomes intensely curious about her past.

Crow, Osh, and Maggie explore Penikese after they learn it has been turned into a bird sanctuary. The night before they go, Osh shows Crow a ring and a tattered letter from her biological mother—he found them attached to her the day that he found her. The letter’s scant few words become clues in Crow’s search. On Penikese, a man named Kendall poses as the gamekeeper and demands they leave. Before they go, Crow sees a carving of a lamb—a word mentioned in the letter from her mother—on a gravesite.

Seeking information, Crow writes to the former director of the Penikese hospital, Dr. Eastman. He tells her that a couple named Susanna and Elvan had the only children on Penikese. Their son Jason was sent to an orphanage in nearby New Bedford. Their other child, Eastman says, was stillborn and buried on the island. Crow rightly suspects that his story is erroneous—she was this second child. Her parents secretly sent her away and dug a false grave. At Eastman’s suggestion, Crow writes to Miss Evelyn Morgan in Louisiana, Susanna’s former nurse. While awaiting her reply, Crow, Osh, and Maggie learn that Kendall is an imposter. They return to Penikese, where Crow frees the real gamekeeper, Sloan, whom Kendall has imprisoned. Crow also finds carvings of a lamb and a feather, another clue from the tattered letter, in one of the island’s old cottages.

En route to New Bedford, Crow sees a ship’s crewmember that looks like her, leading her to believe Jason lives nearby. At the former orphanage, she meets Mrs. Pelham, who took care of Jason as a boy. She tells her Jason now works as a sailor. Back home, Evelyn Morgan’s reply confirms that Crow was born on Penikese, and that Susanna and Evelyn put her to sea shortly after birth hoping she would find a better life. Evelyn reveals that Kendall tricked Evelyn into telling him about treasure Susanna had found and buried to preserve it for Crow and Jason.

Crow, Osh, and Maggie find treasure buried in the false grave on Penikese. They hide it, but Crow keeps a few items hidden in a coffee can. One night, Kendall breaks into their cottage; though they escape, he ransacks the place and finds the coffee can. Shortly afterward, Kendall is arrested for pawning the treasure. Osh, Crow, and Maggie identify him in a police lineup, but Kendall soon escapes police custody by attacking a guard.

One night, the ship on which Crow saw a man she assumes is Jason wrecks. Crow finds the man knocked unconscious, and Maggie and Osh take him in and nurse him back to health. That night, Kendall makes Crow lead him to the treasure. She tricks him into climbing a tree. Kendall is knocked out by a fall, and the police capture him.

The sailor awakens, and turns out to be a man named Quincy, not Jason. Crow decides to hide half of the treasure in case Jason ever does show up, but sends most of the remaining half to orphanages and hospitals. The novel ends with Crow solidifying bonds with her adoptive father and finding peace within her life and the family she was born into but separated from.