Escape Across the Wide Sea

On a crisp fall day in 1686, nine-year-old Daniel Bonnet’s comfortable life is shattered when the French 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 the king’s Catholic 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 a new life for himself while confronting the challenges and moral complexities of slavery, inequality, and life with a disability.Katherine Kirkpatrick’s fascination with history has inspired her to write eight works of historical fiction and nonfiction for children and young adults. These titles include The Snow Baby, a James Madison Award Honor Book; Mysterious Bones, a Golden Kite Honor Book; Redcoats and Petticoats, illustrated by Ronald Himler; and the novels Keeping the Good Light, Trouble’s Daughter, and Between Two Worlds. For more information on school presentations and classroom discounts on books, please visit www.katherinekirkpatrick.com.Nominated for the Lamplighter Award “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 Read more