Adrift

Family serves as the heart of this tender novel, which follows two tightly bonded cousins across a devastating separation. The daughters of two Filipina sisters married to two white-cued American brothers, “Star Sisters” Coral and Isa have been inseparable since birth, raised together on Pebble Island, N.Y. But a crisis strikes during Coral’s family sailing trip, when an earthquake in Indonesia causes a tidal wave that capsizes their boat. No survivors are reported, but Isa, unwilling to give up hope, is certain that Coral is alive: “I can feel her presence inside me, in my bones, in my gut, in my heart.” And she’s right: Coral is stranded alone on an island with a survival kit and a few days’ rations, attempting to endure until help arrives. Employing the cousins’ alternating first-person voices to portray their situations and their love across space and time, Guerrero (All You Knead Is Love) movingly portrays the toll of resilience, sorrow, and survival, seamlessly including Filipino cultural references throughout. Ages 8–12. Agent: Wendy Schmalz, Wendy Schmalz Agency. (Sept.)