Escape Across the Wide Sea
by Katherine KirkpatrickHoliday House
Ages 8-12
On a fall day in 1686, nine-year-old Daniel Bonnet’s comfortable life is shattered when the king’s soldiers destroy his family’s weaving shop and threaten to murder his father. Now, because they are Huguenots, Protestants who refuse to convert to King Louis XIV’s religion, the Bonnets must flee France. In the ensuing violence, Daniel is left permanently maimed. Wounded and in severe pain, he embarks on an uncertain and courageous journey that will last more than two years and take him to Africa and the Caribbean on a slave ship, and finally to the colony of New York.
In this stirring coming-of-age story about the founding of New Rochelle, New York, a boy must invent himself while confronting the challenges and moral complexities of slavery, inequality, and disability.
Author’s Note:
“I wrote this book at the suggestion of a librarian from New Rochelle, New York. She wanted a story for children that would tell how her hometown was founded by Huguenots, French Protestants. I researched the topic and became engrossed. When I found out that La Rochelle in France had been a port for slave ships, my ideas for a plot changed dramatically. The book became far more complex and a richer, deeper story.”
To learn more about Huguenots, see www.hhs-newpaltz.org
“Kirkpatrick’s fast-paced drama is rooted solidly in the particulars of late 17th-century life, and there’s plenty of action to sustain readers as they learn about a period of history likely to be new to them.” –Kirkus
“Kirkpatrick creates a strong sense of place, and the plot successfully comes full circle. . . This strong historical novel presents a realistic account of slavery, religious intolerance, and French immigration in Colonial times.” –School Library Journal
Nominated for the Christian Bookseller Association’s “Lamplighter Award”