Waiting to Dive - Softcover

Rivers, Karen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1551431599 ISBN 13: 9781551431598

Publisher: Orca Book Publishers, 2001

Synopsis

Carly is nine-going-on-ten and she loves to dive - dive from the rocks at her family's cabin in the Gulf Islands, dive from the boards at the pool where she and her friends belong to the Dolphins Diving Club. She loves the feeling of floating up into the air and then dropping cleanly into the water with hardly a splash. She loves the feeling that she gets when everything goes just right. Then Carly invites her best friend Montana to spend the weekend at the cabin. They play on the beach, build forts and explore the island, waiting for the tide to get high enough so that they can dive off the rocks. And then when it does, Montana dives too deeply and hits her head on a submerged log. And Carly's world suddenly changes. Waiting to Dive is a sensitive, amusing, realistic account of a child's attempt to deal with tragedy. Carly is given to much exaggeration, dislikes her step-brother and -sister, has not yet come to terms with her father's death, and wears her emotions on her sleeve - in short, she is a very real young girl. The story she tells will resonate with young readers.

About this title

Reviews

Gr 3-6-Ten-year-old Carly is having a wonderful summer of diving, spending weekends at her family's island cabin, and enjoying her friends. Then one weekend, her best friend dives too deeply and is seriously injured. Carly spends the rest of the novel dealing with her emotions, feeling guilty that the accident happened at her lake cabin and guilty that she can still compete in the sport while Montana is unable to walk. The author uses a very kidlike and conversational voice. Carly tells readers small bits about her deceased father, and then advises them, "-don't ask me about it" as if there could be a two-way dialogue. The novel deals somewhat with relationships in stepfamilies, somewhat with friends becoming handicapped, and somewhat with competition diving. With all that to offer, readers are sure to find something to enjoy here.-Debbie Whitbeck, West Ottawa Public Schools, Holland, MI

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 4-6. Carly, 10, likes to dive, and she's very good at it, whether she's practicing at her local pool in Victoria, Canada, or diving with friends from a rock near her family's island cabin. Her candid first-person, present-tense narrative will draw middle-graders as she grumbles about her "New Dad" and her stepfamily (her Real Dad is dead), shops at the Gap, and tries to act cool. The island setting is idyllic until a catastrophe happens: her best friend, Montana, dives from the rock and breaks her back on a big sunken log. The shock of the accident in the island paradise is not sensationalized, and as Montana slowly recovers, Carly overcomes her grief and depression to dive again like a champion. She also accepts her stepdad. The diving action is exhilarating, the stepfamily dynamics are realistic, and readers will appreciate Carly's realization about "all the stuff that could happen that you can't control at all." Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

I wait for the dive to come. And it does. I don't know how or where it had been...hiding out in one of the pink and white cavities on my body somewhere, I guess. But there it was. I pulled my arms back and over and my feet lifted off and I cut the water cleanly like a knife through butter. At least that's how I felt...Right then, at that exact second, I totally knew that I wanted to do it again. And again and again and again.

Edition details

• Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1551431599
• ISBN 13: 9781551431598
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128