Ice Breaker
The Hidden 1
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Petrel leaned on the rail, watching the ice cave and stamping her feet for warmth. The berg came closer. That's when she saw him. Laid out on the ice like a dead fish, with a scattering of snow covering his face. A boy, where there should have been nothing but the memory of winter. A frozen boy.
Twelve-year-old Petrel is an outcast, the lowest of the low on an ancient icebreaker that has been following the same course for three hundred years. In that time, the ship's crew has forgotten its original purpose and broken into three warring tribes, the Cooks, the Officers and the Engineers. Everyone has a tribe except Petrel, whose parents committed such a terrible crime that they were thrown overboard, and their daughter ostracised.
But Petrel is a survivor. She lives in the dark corners of the ship, trusting no one, speaking to no one except two large grey rats, Mister Smoke and Missus Slink. That is, until a boy is discovered, frozen on an iceberg, and brought onto the ship. No one knows where he has come from, and when he recovers consciousness he claims to have forgotten even his name. The tribes don't trust strangers; they haven't seen one for three hundred years. But Petrel saves him and hides him away in the forgotten corners of the ship, hoping he will be her friend.
What she doesn't know is that for the last three hundred years, the ship has been guarding a secret. A secret that could change the world. A secret that the boy has been sent to destroy, along with the ship and everyone on it...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tanner (the Keepers trilogy) offers an unusual take on the post-apocalyptic genre with this chilly tale of life board a massive ship that has been traversing the frozen seas for three centuries, ever since the Anti-Machinist movement caused the collapse of society. Having long forgotten their original purpose, the residents of the icebreaker Oyster have separated into three tribes that exist in an uneasy state of low-level conflict. Bullied and shunned, 13-year-old Petrel belongs to no tribe, but when the Oyster finds a mysterious boy stranded on an iceberg, she helps to protect him; they become unlikely allies as the ship descends into chaos and open warfare. Tanner's portrayal of a culture that has lost its way, as well as conflicts between science and faith, provides a complex, thought-provoking backdrop to Petrel's tale of self-reliance and Fin's crisis of loyalties. These interior journeys are just one part of a fast-paced adventure featuring talking rats, a rusting mazelike setting, and growing tension, which leaves things wide open for the next installment of the Hidden trilogy. Ages 9 12.