A 52-Hertz Whale

Gr 9 Up—Fifteen-year-old James is reaching out for help; he is worried about the migration of his "adopted" whale, Salt, which he's been tracking for a year. Salt's tracking signal weakened and now is dead. James is also at a loss when it comes to understanding his peers; he studies the Urban Dictionary in an effort to decipher what makes fellow teens tick. In a flurry of email messages, James connects to Darren, a 23-year-old self-proclaimed filmmaker who visited James's special education program the year before. Darren is quick to answer James's e-mails with long descriptions of what's happening in his life. The story unfolds entirely through email correspondence and adding to the story are the voices (more emails) of many tangential characters who have little connection to James or the main narrative. The email trails are difficult to follow, snarling the clarity of the story like too many people talking over one another. The characters appear distracted, their lives replicated in the form of unsatisfying digital communications. The bulk of the narrative flows between James and the struggling Darren; James is having social issues at school and attempts to use Darren as his sounding board. But Darren wallows in self-pity over a broken relationship and friction with his father and stumbles over his college aspirations and his flawed and faltering professional life. In short, Darren is coping with adult issues that have little to do with James's teenage problems.