Short and sweet!
Very touching.
( )

If you're an animal lover or just enjoy nature in general, I recommend this to you. The author's talent for vivid description was what I liked most about this book, which is about her encounter with a baby whale while training off the California coast (she had swum the English Channel by the time she was 15 years old). She seems to have remembered every detail of those hours when she swam with the baby gray whale, searching for its mother; I enjoyed reading about the many animals she encountered and the colors and movement of the water at different depths and distances from the shore.

Less enjoyable were the author's pauses in the narrative to philosophize to the reader, and at times directly to the baby whale.

Grayson, don't go. We'll find your mother. Be patient. Sometimes you just have to believe. Sometimes that belief gets you where you want to go, sometimes it carries you a little closer, and then you discover another way.

This is the type of thing that makes me throw myself on the floor and pretend to be in my death throes. Or at least make rude noises with my mouth.

She was also a bit heavy-handed with the similes.

While the above complaints did knock my rating down a couple stars, I was moved by the story and was generally glad I read it. If it were a longer book, I might not feel that way, but I liked more than I didn't like in the 148 pages she took to tell her story. ( )

There are good things to say about this little book about a young long distance swimmer from Seal Beach, Ca and her amazing encounter with a lost baby gray whale. The writer/narrator brings the ocean world to life and paints a picture of teaming biodiversity off the shores of Southern California. She weaves in educational snippets for young students who might have an interest in marine biology, and she does it by telling a story that is sure to pull the heart strings of some readers.

That having been said, I really thought that this short 150 page story could have been shorter. I am personally not a fan of writing that attempts to outdo itself with its expressions of creative imagery. What do I mean by that? I mean finding multiple different ways to tell us the same thing, and this happened often enough for me to want to skim to get past it. One example came when the narrator expressed how hungry she was, then proceeded to list a literal menu of options that could have satisfied that hunger. I got the point halfway through the list and didn't need more.

Still, it's a nice little book to add to one's collection, especially if you are familiar with the little community of Seal Beach, California. ( )

This was a mellow, soothing audio to listen to on short road trip. ( )

the story itself is fascinating, and she sure knows how the ocean works, but it's not particulary great literature. Still...she swam with a whale!He followed her around! The book did resurrect my weird fears/fascnations with large underwater creatures... ( )