They're simple drawings, but they work well to convey the mood of the piece. See what I'm saying, it's kind of hokey.What saves And the Ocean Was Our Sky is a good overall concept, brevity, and the wonderful illustrations of Rovina Cai. So who do the whales hunt? The illusive human with “a rump like he know nil,*” Toby Wick. Make sense? But you can breath a sigh of relief, because there isn't a whale in this book named Moby Dick. So basically the whales are human, the humans are human, up is down and down is up. They hunt humans, using “their bones for tallow and soaps, their skin for sails, their meat … as bait for the vast shoals of prey.” They speak to one another and can, if taught, speak to humans in proper English. Then it gets a tad hokey.The whales, believers of prophecy, sail in ships of their own construction. ( Literally, as kids today might say.) Told by the whales, we quickly learn that the whales perceive their ocean as being above the sky, and they descend to reach the surface where the human ships are. (I'll get around to you all soon.)If you haven't already heard, And the Ocean Was Our Sky is Moby Dick turned upside down.
Here I must apologize to the other whale books on my to-read list that have been there far longer than And the Ocean Was Our Sky. Seriously, every well drawn whale cover ends up on my to-read pile. Ness, in an obvious attempt to hook me as a reader, decided to put a finely illustrated whale on the cover. This is the first time I've read any of his work. The writing is as beautiful as you might expect, and its literary style, as well as some dark imagery, make it appropriate for older readers.Apparently this Patrick Ness guy is pretty big amongst readers of Young Adult books. With a reversal of point of view (a literal one, with Rovina Cai’s exceptional illustration showing whales swimming upside down, with the ocean floor as their sky) comes Ness’ re-visioning of the patriarchal exploitation of the natural world, and of man’s destructive obsession to conquer what he falsely believes he is master of. In Patrick Ness’ amazing homage to the American literature classic Moby Dick, the worlds of ocean and sky are upturned, and it’s a whale that tells her version of the story of hunter and hunted. When Bathsheba and her crew find a man ship, they also find a sign that puts them on the trail of Toby Wick, a devil that all whales grow up fearing.
Trained as an apprentice, she finds herself the most junior member of a hunting party led by the formidable and infamous Captain Alexandra, who still has the rusted end of a human harpoon sticking out from her head. Bathsheba is a whale that is destined to hunt humans, even though the hunt is often deadly.
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