Strong Like the Sea

By: Wendy S. Swore

Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller

Even though twelve-year-old Alexis was born in Hawaii, she won’t surf or swim with her friends - not since the ocean and its hidden creatures swept her out to sea. Instead, she grabs her best detective hat and decodes her mom’s latest challenge.

Alex’s mom works in counterintelligence and leaves codes, ciphers, and puzzles behind for Alex to solve, always with a “treasure” at the end. It’s a brilliant game between them, and Alex loves figuring out her mom’s puzzles - especially the tricky ones - but when an emergency at sea puts her mom in possible danger, solving the next one suddenly feels far more urgent.

Friends help as Alex races to decipher each clue before time runs out, but when the trail leads to grumpy old Uncle, his enormous dog Sarge, and a sea turtle unlike any other, the challenge changes into something bigger than any before. With storms on the horizon and lives on the line, Alex must face her fears to solve Mom’s challenge and save those she loves. With her ohana to help, she must be strong like the sea.

©2021 Wendy Swore (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing

Fun read with young girls

I listened to this with my 9
Year old daughter and she would ask for it every time we got in the car.

Heartwarming

Great story about family and friends coming together. I want to read it with my class because it also shows that in every family we all have out different ways of coming together to support one another.

Strong like the sea is the best!

Strong like the sea is funny, cute, and it teaches a lesson to be brave and face your fears. I also like that even though Alex is scared to go in the ocean, and wants to win the history prize, she jumps into the ocean and saves her uncle. Also, I think it is cute that Alex has a sea turtle friend.

What Just Happened?

If I spend two minutes not listening, I miss something and don't know what happens. I liked the story, just.... I couldn't quite understand the main plot.

Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great book love the whole thing make more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!look love all l l l love

What an adventure!

This is another great book from Wendy. This book is filled with adventure and the Hawaiian culture.

The main character has to learn to balance life and worry while trying to get through a treasure hunt that her mom set up for her. Along the way she finds an unexpected friend and learns to work through a major fear.

Great read for all ages!

What a great story!

This book captured me from the start.
The characters are well created, the nature and people are described beutifully, and the main message of this story is heartworming.

A perfect read

Having lived in Hawaii during my high school years, this book was a sweet trip down memory lane. I was so impressed with the narrator! I’m guessing she's either lived in Hawaii or is a genius at dialects and inflections because her pidgin was spot on.

Beautiful story

Twelve-year-old Alex lives in Hawaii, but doesn't go into the ocean. She had a bad experience with it when she was younger and now has a crippling fear that prevents her from enjoying swimming and surfing with her friends. Instead, she likes solving puzzles. The best puzzles are the challenges her mother, who works in counterintelligence, creates for her.

Alex's mother is currently on assignment, on a submarine - somewhere - and checks in Alex and her dad with a weekly phone call. While she's gone for this assignment, she's left a challenge for Alex to solve; a challenge that is even tougher than the ones she's had before. The puzzle clues are proving to be tricky, but when Alex's mom misses a scheduled phone call, the stakes suddenly seem much higher to Alex.

As Alex races to solve her mother's challenge, she will find herself facing all kinds of struggles - including some that have her facing her biggest fear of all.

This was such a fun book to read. It included so many aspects of life on Hawaii - not the touristy stuff, but life lived by the locals - that I almost felt like I was there. Even the descriptions of the storm were incredibly realistic.

The struggle that Alex faces about her fear of the water, including her inner thoughts, were real and raw, and elevated this book to a whole different level. Add to the the struggles that her dad is also dealing with from not only not knowing where his wife is, but also not even knowing if she's okay because they haven't heard from her and no one will give him any information about her. Those stressors are also preying on his own issues with being in control, the effects of which spill over into his interactions with Alex - some of those hurt my heart because you could feel how much both of them were struggling, yet neither of them could change/fix the problem.

I think my favorite character was Uncle. The reader, along with Alex, gets to know Uncle as the book progresses, and discover that he may not be the big grumpy old man he professes to be. And that scene at the end.... so good. No, I'm not going to tell you what it is. You'll have to read the book to find out. But you should - you really should.

For this book, I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Emily Woo Zeller. Having listened to her narrate other books, I am quite used to her cadence and think she is a wonderful narrator. She did a great job with the emotion and tension, really pulling me into the story. If you also listen to audiobooks, or even if you don't usually do so, you should give this one a try.

kids loved it!

My kids loved this book. All four (girls and a boy) gave it two thumbs up. hey especially loved the riddkes!!