Lifeboat 12
Susan Hood
Simon & Schuster
Fiction, MG Action/Chiller/Historical Fiction/Poetry
Themes: Cross-Genre, Seafaring Tales
****
Description
When war comes to London, it brings rations, air raid sirens, gas masks, and bombs falling from the skies... all of
which could hardly make thirteen-year-old Ken's life much worse, thanks to an overworked father, a stepmother who
hardly seems to care for him, and a kid half-sister who steals all the love and attention in the household. Now he's
been told that he is to be one of countless children to be shipped away from the city due to the threat of German
attacks - all the way across the ocean to Canada. Dad tells him it'll be his own grand adventure, like the ones in the
books he's always reading (that of course he can't take with him), but to Ken it feels more like his stepmom has
finally found a way to get him out of the house once and for all. Still, once he's on his way, he begins to warm to
the prospect, especially when the food aboard the transport ship - luxury liner SS City of Benares, out of
India, pressed into national service - is miles above anything he's had in his impoverished, ration-restricted home in
memory.
Then the German submarine finds the convoy, and everything goes wrong all at once.
Now Ken is in a cramped lifeboat with hardly any food, not enough water, and odds of rescue diminishing by the hour.
What happened to the other passengers and crew of their ship? Where is the British Navy, who was supposed to be
following the convoy? And how is anyone ever going to find one tiny, overloaded lifeboat in the middle of the vast
Atlantic Ocean?
This story was inspired by true events in World War II.
Review
Melding the horrors of war and ocean survival, the confusion of growing up in turbulent times, and the excitement
of discovery and adventure as a young man is pushed into the wider world on his own for the first time (even if that
excitement too often runs face-first into the unforgiving chasm of reality), Lifeboat 12 makes a pivotal
moment in world history relatable to readers of all ages.
Ken starts out a mere boy, casually selfish in the way of many children, prone to mischief like stealing apples as he
acts out anxieties about his home life: he still carries a certain guilt knowing that his mother died shortly after
giving birth to him, and has never warmed up to his stepmother, nor she to him. When he finds that his parents are
sending him halfway around the world, he sees it as ultimate proof that he's unwelcome in his own home... until the
bombs begin to fall, and he realizes the danger they claim they're trying to protect him from is all too real. In the
way of children, he adapts quickly to the new reality, becoming obsessed with airplanes and ships until he can
identify them at a glance, and thus thinks himself more prepared for the journey to Canada than he really is - even
when the trip itself proves at least as dangerous as staying in London, and that's before they even reach the docks
and the ship. Along the way, he begins to make new friends and even step up to small leadership roles over younger
children. Soon enough, he's forgotten all about the potential dangers of the war... but the war has not forgotten
about him, as he learns the hard way in the dead of night. In the mad scramble to escape, he ends up in the wrong
lifeboat, one of many crowded into too small of a space with inadequate emergency supplies (there isn't even simple
fishing gear on board to supplement canned rations). The emergency levels playing fields almost across the board;
boy or girl, passenger or crew, officer or civilian, adult or child, even white English or other (the crew of the
luxury liner are Muslims and foreigners, most of them just service crew and not even working sailors), all are
literally in the same survival boat. The desperation and tedium are at least as dangerous as exposure and dehydration,
and Ken and others try desperately to keep themselves sane... not all of them succeeding.
The story is told in a sort of free verse, with short chapters that have little fat in them, adding an almost surreal
overtone. The ending felt a trifle abrupt, and I almost wanted an afterword outlining the original true story and
what was kept or changed about Hood's take on events, but other than that it's a solid tale.