Swimming With the Whales - Hardcover

"[An] intimate, eloqent novel."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"When you are fourteen, you may swim with the whales," Papa had said. "I'll go with you and give you my blessing. . . ."
Paolo and his father, a naturalist, live in a beautiful, isolated village in the Argentian region of Patagonia, where they spend their time exploring the land around them and the unusual animals who live there. But Paolo's dream of swimming with the whales will have to wait another year, as his life begins to take some unexpected turns.
Paolo's father wants to send him away to San Francisco for a year to live with his mother. And his best friend, Luis, has suddenly become mean and difficult. Then an American family comes to the village and Paolo falls for Samantha, a nice girl his own age. But when Luis meets her, she seems to change too! Now Paolo is lonelier than ever--until one day when he discovers the strength he never thought he had, a strength that will help him to love and to let go. . . .
"The relationships . . . are convincingly complex and human."
--School Library Journal

Vivid, National Geographic-like descriptions of South American wildlife add an extra dimension to this first novel about an eighth-grade boy facing tough decisions. Paolo, who dreams of swimming with the whales, has no desire to leave his Argentine coastal village, but he is being pressured by his father to go to school in San Francisco, where Paolo's mother now lives. Hurt that his father seems so eager for him to go away, Paolo seeks consolation from best friend Luis and from Sarah, an American girl spending a year in the village with her family. However, the two confidants are preoccupied with problems of their own. Sarah resents having been dragged away from her California friends and a chance to try out for the Junior Olympics, and Luis fears he will have to quit school to care for his ailing mother. Relating Paolo's reverence for the natural world around him, Ellis deftly parallels animal instincts with human behavior; Paolo's awe is as clearly defined as his reluctance to migrate north like the whales. Although Sarah comes across as somewhat plastic, tensions between all of the characters are convincingly conveyed. A glossary of Spanish terms accompanies this intimate, eloquent novel. Ages 11-13.
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