| Abstract |
The diary of a ten-year-old girl who moves with her family in 1855 from a town on the Maine coast to rugged Turtle Island where her father is to be the lighthouse keeper. December 1, 1855. The sea is never still. Sometimes it roars so loud that it drowns our voices. Mama says there hasn't been a storm this fierce since the night I was born. She thinks it is too dangerous for me to go to the tower again. Yet what else can I do? I'm the lightkeeper now. On the tiny lighthouse island that is her family's new home, Birdie faithfully keeps a journal. She writes down everything: the change of seasons, the rhythms of the sea, and all that her father, the lightkeeper, is teaching her. But then one stormy night, her father is taken ill. Only Birdie knows how to keep the lighthouse's strong beam running. Will she be brave enough to guide the boats safely into harbor? |
