Bibliographic Information:
Title: Whalefall
Author: Daniel Kraus
ISBN: 9781665918176
Publisher: MTV Books
Copyright Date: 2024
Format/Genre: Hardcover; Hard science fiction; Science fiction; Sea stories; Adult books for young adults (Whalefall: NoveList Plus - Powered by EBSCOhost, n.d.)
Awards and Honors: 2024 Alex Award Winner
Reading Level/Interest Level: While the book was published for adults it will be a hit with the teens. Daniel Kraus already has a following with YA fans, the main character is a 17-year-old with family issues, and it is action packed!
Plot Summary: Whalefall is the story of Jay Gardiner, a 17-year-old kid living in Monterey, California. Growing up, Jay had a complicated relationship with his father. It seemed as though his sisters could do no wrong, and Jay could do no right. Jay was constantly being pushed harder and harder by his father, Mitt. A year ago, Mitt jumped off a fishing boat and drowned himself. As our story begins, Jay sets off on a scuba expedition to try to find his father’s remains, trying to get a bit of closure and repair some family issues between himself and his mother and sisters.
During the dive, as Jay approaches an underwater canyon, he is surprised by a giant squid coming at him. And right behind the giant squid is a sperm whale – and the sperm whale swallows both Jay and the giant squid! The rest of the book describes Jake’s experiences within the sperm whale’s stomachs, as he fights to survive and get out of the sperm whale.
I could leave it at that, but this book is so much more than that. While Jay is inside the sperm whale, he is having flashbacks to various times in his life with his father. At times, and it is unclear whether these are hallucinations or supernatural, it appears that Jay is having conversations with his father inside the whale (is his father the whale?). This voice of his father keeps him going on his quest to get out of the whale, offering tips, suggestions, and motivation when Jay’s is waning.
Author Background: Daniel Kraus is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels and graphic novels. He coauthored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea he and Guillermo del Toro created for the Oscar-winning film of the same name. His books have been YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults picks, Bram Stoker finalists, and more and his work has been translated into over twenty languages (Daniel Kraus, n.d.).
Critical Evaluation: Is this an action/adventure book? Yes, but it is also an analysis of a relationship between a father and his son. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but the love is always there. While the parts of the story told from inside the whale are fascinating, and in the afterword of the book the author describes the depths he went to in order to have physical accuracy of the inside of a sperm whale, the real nuts and bolts of this story are about the relationship between Jay and his father Mitt. The story alternates between real-time inside the whale and flashbacks Jay is having containing memories of his father, as he works out his past relationship with Mitt while inside a sperm whale.
This is another 2024 Alex Award winner I picked for this assignment, and I thought it was outstanding, and a quick read as some of the chapters are very short. A review I found in the School Library Journal agrees that this is a great YA book, even though it is marketed for adults, stating “this book is just as much about exploring family and human connections as it is about one man’s survival in the belly of a beast. This is a profoundly moving, entertaining, and majestic story. I highly recommend it. And even though it is being marketed as adult, it’s a great read for high school students” (Jensen & Comment, 2023).
Creative Use for a Library Program: Even though Kraus did extensive research to look into whether or not Jay’s predicament is actually possible, I think it would be fun to get some non-fiction books about whales and whale anatomy, specifically that of sperm whales, to see if the teens think something like this could actually happen.
Speed-Round Book Talk: Jay and Mitt fight and argue a lot. Jay is Mitt’s seventeen-year-old son, and it seems like Mitt has always been harder on Jay than on his sisters. Mitt jumps out of a fishing boat and Jay goes looking for him, and gets swallowed by a sperm whale.
Potential Challenge Issues and Defense Preparation: I can’t really think of a reason why someone might challenge this book. Maybe because of Mitt’s suicide? The Trigger Warning Database (yes it appears there is actually a website for that) says that these are the trigger warnings for Whalefall – Hallucinations; Suicide; Graphic depictions of cancer; Body horror & dismemberment; Emesis; Death of a parent; Drowning. This book is pretty tame other than Mitt’s suicide, which is not graphically described, and some swear words. Any challenge could easily be defended with the library’s collection development policy.
Reason for Inclusion: I have had this book on my TBR (“To Be Read”) pile for months, and when I saw I could include Alex Award Winners in this blog, which Whalefall has done, I knew it was time to read it and see what everyone was talking about on social media. This book is a trip – if that trip takes you into a whale’s belly!
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