Red Kayak

by Priscilla Cummings

Assignment: #3 of narrative annotations
Publication info.: Dutton, 2004. 224 p.
Genre & Format: Mystery; Novel

Awards/Reviews: Kirkus, Booklist and SLJ

Grades: 6 and up

Summary: Brady is a nice thirteen-year-old boy who lives with his family on the Chesapeake Bay as working crabbers. The area is changing with more summer house visitors and rich redevelopers on their road, all while the crabbing business is getting more difficult to make a living at. His friends, J.T. and Digger, are absorbed in the resentment their parents feel about the changes, and show their animosity whenever the subject of the new neighbors comes up. Brady is called out to take his boat to help search the backwaters when a mother and son get caught in the strong currents of the bay. He finds the toddler, but is distraught when the boy dies of hypothermia regardless. As he questions how this happens, details are revealed which cause him to figure out what the right thing to do is.

Comments: It is a story of friendship and coming of age that resonates with his age group, as well as older readers. It is so beautifully written, and I really could not see what was coming next. The details are believable but not overdone, and the emotions are real and succinct.

Booktalking ideas: My instinct is to talk about my personal experiences with kayaking, thinking that was what this book was about when I first picked it up. Then I would go into the fact that it is really a mystery that is very well written for anybody to read.

VOYAesque Rating: 5Q 5P