A king with a passion for the ocean requests a poor sponge diver to describe what lies beneath the sea.
*******************
More than anything the prince loved the sea. He spent hours at a time watching it rise and fall and crash against the rocks below the palace hill, and he longed to dive and swim in it as the sponge gatherers did. But he was a prince, and the sea was unfit for the royal heir.
One night, feeling he could resist no longer, he slipped from the palace in the darkness. At the shore he met an old man who described to him the wonders and the beauty that the sea hid below. Guards appeared to bring the prince back, and they ridiculed the old man who, they said, was not only mad, but blind. Still the prince could not forget the old man's words. Years later when the prince had become king, he met Demetrius, a young sponge diver, and made a bargain with him. Demetrius won and, in a way, so did the king, though his reward was bittersweet.
Few authors can spin magic into words as Eve Bunting can, and the breathtaking paintings by Michael Hague conspire to keep the reader spellbound long after the story is read.
—from the back cover
Did you find this review helpful?