Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice, 2009
Oregon Spirit Book Award Honor Book in the Juvenile category, 2009
Twelve-year-old Jonah and his mother, a well-known photographer, are on a self-healing mission, exploring the natural beauty of the Queen Charlotte Islands. They are each trying in their own way to get over the tragic loss of father and husband who died in a rock climbing accident months before.
One day, a mysterious girl appears wading in the waters near their float house, and an even more mysterious mist saves Jonah from his own plunge off a cliff top, Jonah is plunged into a time travel adventure that takes him back 14,000 years when the Charlottes were one of the stops for the ancient peoples making their way from Asia over the Bering Strait and down through the Americas. It is a time when the seas were much lower than they are in the 21st century because of the proliferation of ice and the different climate - and so the map of the islands had changed significantly.
For Jonah this is a healing quest, teaming with Akilah, the girl from that other time who teaches him survival skills he has never dreamed of. There is menace in the confrontation with the Crossers - more recent arrivals from the Bering Strait - and from all manner of natural hazards. The burgeoning friendship with Akilah arouses all Jonah's generous instincts and yearning for love. Above all, he discovers personal strengths that help him get past the loss of his father, qualities and realizations that he brings back to his mother when the adventure is complete.
Click here for a downloadable PDF file of the Teacher's Guide.
Reviews:
"If you like the notion of traveling back in time, then Archipelago by David Ward is a must read for you. . . The plot is jam-packed with plenty of unpredictable action. . . This is a great book to read for pleasure whether you are 10-years-old or an adult. Ward will take his readers on a nail-biting adventure back into time, and they will not want to put the book down until it is finished."
Highly Recommended"
-- CM Magazine. Click here to see the complete article.
"Lovers of time travel will enjoy this book set in B.C.'s Queen Charlotte Islands. Jonah is accompanying his artist mother to the islands when an accident transports him back 14, 000 years to a time that is strikingly different. Yet his attraction to a stone-age Aboriginal girl is surprisingly modern."
-- Winnipeg Free Press
"David Ward's clear, direct prose keeps the plot lively, and his dialogues, especially those between Jonah and his mother, are lifelike and compelling."
-- ForeWord Magazine
David Ward was born in Montreal but grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, hiking and kayaking the beautiful West Coast. David, his wife and three children maintain a home in Pender Harbour on the Sunshine Coast where he edits his novels and picture book manuscripts in view of the ocean. His book The Hockey Tree was the winner of the 2006 Shining Willow Award and is nominated for the 2007/2008 Chocolate Lily Award. David is currently an Assistant Professor in Language and Literacy at Willamette University in Oregon.
Visit David's web site at www.davidward.ca.
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