★★★★★ 5
Well done!
Format: Kindle
Young, bloodied, sleep deprived and starving, not to mention being surrounded by an army of hungry sharks! It seems almost unimaginable that a sixteen-year-old could experience such a harrowing ordeal and live to tell about it. The story of young Josh, a baseball loving kid from San Antonio, Texas, who forges his mothers signature in order to join the Navy, takes place in 1945 near the end of WWII aboard the USS Indianapolis. After being struck by a Japanese torpedo, the mighty Naval ship sinks, thrusting the survivors into an unforgiving ocean for five harrowing days. The story is fast-paced with lots of action without being overly graphic and is the perfect for middle-schoolers with a penchant for excitement!
There's also a great friendship angle which was really great to see especially since the boy Josh befriends (Lee) is of Japanese decent. At the time Josh bears a lot of resentment towards the Japanese since his father was killed when the Japanese bombed Pear Harbor so I think this offers an excellent 'teaching moment' for kids today.
The book is chock-full of numerous interesting facts about the USS Indianapolis which I hadn't known before reading the book. Of note, it states that the sinking of the USS Indianapolis resulted in the largest number of shark attacks on humans in history, which I think is a little known and very interesting fact! Well done!
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Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2019
