Polaris
Michael Northrop
Scholastic
Fiction, MG Historical Fiction/Horror/Sci-Fi
Themes: Cross-Genre, Fungi, Girl Power, Seafaring Tales
***
Description
In the 1830's, the American sailing ship Polaris was sent on a mission of scientific discovery to the wild Amazon. With
it sailed a complement of ship's boys, who were left behind with the vessel while the captain, the on-board botanist, and a
contingent of sailors struck out up the river... only to return a week later, their numbers halved and the botanist dead. Only a
few days into the return voyage, mutiny rocks the ship - only the mutineers inexplicably try to destroy the vessel and make off in
the long boat.
The vessel, and the ship's boys, who were left behind.
As the only crew members left aboard, the kids realize it's up to them to take the abandoned Polaris back to New York City,
or at least American waters... but they also learn all too soon why the mutineers wanted to sink the ship. Something lurks in the
depths of the hold, something that followed them from the Amazon jungle.
Review
This started out as a decently suspenseful tale of survival on the high seas, complicated by the unknown threat lurking under the deck, not to mention tensions over who should be the new captain and where they mean to go. The logical leader is Owen, cabin boy and nephew of the ship's captain (and possible heir to the vessel itself, should his naval career last so long), but brash Thacher also makes a play for leadership, and actually has some decent points when he argues for making landfall and escape as soon as possible rather than returning to American ports. Meanwhile, the "Spanish twins" Manny and Mario are hiding their own secrets, and botanist's apprentice Henry struggles with his lack of seamanship skills, even as he might be the only one who can figure out the horrifying truth about their passenger... and here is what ultimately cost the book in the ratings. You know how monster movies are often at their most effective when the monster isn't brought into the light until toward the end, because if the camera lingers too long on it it starts looking really implausible and perhaps a bit goofy? The monster here (no spoiler for saying that there really is something horrific in the hold) is something like that. It should be more terrifying, but the description just... does not work for me, making me think of cheap rubber suits and cut-rate puppetry, despite some sliver of real-world science behind its existence. Once I hit that hiccup to my suspension of disbelief, it was difficult getting back on keel, and the whole story started feeling more like a B-grade monster movie (down to a few too many false starts/jump-scares) than the tense, dramatic story of life and death on the high seas that it was supposed to be, with inexperienced children thrust into a situation far beyond their skill sets. When it worked, it worked well, but I fear it just stretched its premise a bit too far, and ultimately let its characters fall into too-familiar and -flattening tropes, for me to really enjoy it.