Module 10: Olive's Ocean

Module 10

Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes

Summary

Twelve year old Martha is getting to ready to leave for vacation at her grandmother’s house on the beach when the mother of a classmate who died tragically a few weeks before comes to her house. She gives Martha a page from her daughter, Olive’s journal. Olive wrote in her journal that she wants to be a writer, she wants to go to the beach and she hopes she and Martha become friends. The journal unnerves Martha because she realizes that even though she didn’t know Olive well they had a lot in common.

While on vacation, Martha develops a crush on a boy who lives nearby. She is heartbroken when he plays a cruel prank on her. She wants to make some sort of tribute to Olive. She collects a jar of seawater to bring back to Olive’s mother.

Citation

Henkes, K. (2003). Olive’s Ocean. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

My impressions

This book was a Newbery Honor book in 2004 and is on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 most challenged books from 200-2009. As I was reading I was trying to figure out what could possibly be challenged in this book. I was stumped until I realized that I was thinking about it in the context of my middle school library and it was probably challenged in elementary libraries. It has a mild reference to married parents having sex and a few swear words. It is a beautiful coming of age story with the added element of seeing how Martha processes the idea that someone her age died. I did find it a little slow in parts, some students may give up on this book because while there is a lot of emotional growth in the book there is not much actual action.

Review from Horn Book Magazine

Martha opens the door. A strange woman holding an envelope announces: "Olive Barstow was my daughter." Olive, a schoolmate that Martha had barely noticed, has recently been killed in a car accident; the envelope contains an extract from Olive's diary in which she shares her dreams, including the hope that Martha, "the nicest person in my whole entire class," would become her friend. With this original and compelling opening scene Henkes draws us into one summer in the life of a familiar, convincing, fully realized twelve-year-old girl. Olive's Ocean has all the elements of a traditional summer novel: a grandmother with a house by the sea, sandcastles, Parcheesi, a summer crush, and the idea of summer as the time between, the hinge time of growth and change. The book is a web of relationships with Martha at the center. A beloved older brother begins to pull away. Martha sees her grandmother with new eyes. Martha and her mother can't seem to stop irritating each other. The crush-object turns out to have feet of clay. In other hands this might be too much material, but Henkes has a jeweler's touch, strong and delicate. All of Henkes's strengths as a fiction writer -- economy, grace, humor, respect for his characters, a dramatist's eye for gesture, and an underlying good-naturedness -- are given wonderful play here. In her diary Olive reveals that she dreamed of writing a book. "Not a mystery or adventure one, but an emotional one. Maybe I can make kids change their opinions on emotion books like some authors did to me." Who were those authors, we wonder. Very likely somebody just like Kevin Henkes.

Ellis, S. (2003). [Review of the book Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes]. Horn Book Magazine, 79(6), 745-747. Retrieved from EBSCOhost

Idea for use in the library

This book would be good for a book club discussion. There are a lot of elements to it and layers that would make for a good discussion.