Chasing at the Surface: A Novel - Softcover

Mentyka, Sharon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1943328609 ISBN 13: 9781943328604

Publisher: WestWinds Press, 2016

Synopsis

2016 National Outdoor Book Award Winner for Children’s Literature

Sometimes finding your way home takes more than courage. It takes a leap of faith.

Chasing at the Surface tells the story of a young girl’s courage and the healing power of nature. After her mother unexpectedly leaves home, twelve-year old Marisa struggles with her feelings of loss and abandonment just as a pod of nineteen orca whales―mothers with their new calves following a run of chum salmon―become trapped in the enclosed inlet near her Northwest home. Marisa’s journey to help the whales find their way home brings her to a new understanding of the assaults humans have had on nature, and the complicated meaning of family and home.

About this title

From the Author:

Chasing at the Surface is a novel, and its characters and situations are fictional, although some place-names have been borrowed and much of the genealogy and science behind the study of killer whales is authentic. What is perhaps most interesting is that the backstory for this book is based on a true event.

The actual story goes like this. In the fall of 1997, nineteen Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW), members of L-25 sub-pod, paid an unexpected and unusual visit to Dyes Inlet, a small estuary in Puget Sound, near Seattle, Washington. Most experts believe they were following a run of chum salmon or maybe they were just curious, as killer whales can be. Either way, their thirty-day visit was unforgettable for anyone who had the chance to observe these highly social animals up close.When I decided I wanted to create a story to share the special excitement of that experience almost twenty years ago, I read all I could about the actual event, spoke to whale researchers, journalists, and community residents, and visited Dyes Inlet many times. Much of what I learned became part of this book. But as fiction authors often do, I took some liberties in my story, adjusting timelines, changing settings, and creating a slantwise version of the geography of the inlet. In this book, SoundKeeper is loosely based on the Soundwatch Boater Education Program at the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, Washington (www.whalemuseum.org) who work to prevent vessel disturbance to killer whales and other marine wildlife in the Salish Sea. While the pod genealogy chart shows the actual whales that visited Dyes Inlet, some small details have been changed. For example, in real life Muncher is a girl!

When I finished my research and began writing, something interesting happened. My story moved beyond a retelling of the specifics of the actual event. Other themes and connections began to emerge, and the mystery of why the whales stayed in the inlet for so long became much more central. To me, that is the beauty of storytelling. The factual events of the orcas visit became the framework for a story that explores loss, courage, faith, and what it means to call a place home.

J, K, and L pods still frequent the inland waterways of Washington State and the boundary waters between the United States and Canada every spring through fall. In the winter months, they have been spotted as far south as central California. Their numbers declined sharply in the late 1960s as a result of live captures of killer whales for aquarium displays, including the infamous Penn Cove capture in August 1970 that Marisa learns about from Tal and Kevin. In 2005, the Southern Residents were placed on the Endangered Species List, mostly due to its small population size. As of December 31, 2015, J, K, and L pods numbers totaled eighty-four. Lolita, one of the whales taken at Penn Cove, is the last surviving orca of forty-five members of the Southern Resident community that was captured. On February 4, 2015, Lolita was officially included in the endangered listing of the Southern Residents. For years, OrcaNetwork (www.orcanetwork.org) has been working tirelessly to bring Lolita back to the Northwest, where her retirement home awaits. As you read and learn more about the ways of the orcas, my wish for all my readers is that, like Marisa, each of you discovers your own passion in life, whatever that may be, and you find the courage and faith within yourself to follow it as it calls you home.

About the Author:

Sharon Mentyka is a graduate of the MFA program of the Whidbey Writers Workshop and she has had stories and essays published in various literary magazines for both children and adults, including Columbia Kids, a publication of the Washington State History Museum, Soundings Review, and Cricket magazine. B in the World, an illustrated chapter book for children ages four to seven about a gender nonconforming child, was published in 2014.

About this edition

• Publisher: WestWinds Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1943328609
• ISBN 13: 9781943328604
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 228