The Voyage to Magical North

by Jean-Pierre-Victor Ollier

Overview

A swashbuckling story of a girl and a boy, an evil magician, a merry band of pirates, and an unthinkable quest.

Twelve-year-old Brine Seaborne is a girl with a past—if only she could remember what it is. Found alone in a rowboat as a child, clutching a shard of the rare starshell needed for spell-casting, she's spent the past years keeping house for an irritable magician and his obnoxious apprentice, Peter.

When Brine and Peter get themselves into a load of trouble and flee, they blunder into the path of the legendary pirate ship, the Onion. Before you can say "pieces of eight," they're up to their necks in the pirates' quest to find Magical North, a place so shrouded in secrets and myth that most people don't even think it exists. If Brine is lucky, on this adventure, she’ll find her place in the world. And if she's unlucky, everyone on the ship will be eaten by sea monsters. It could really go either way in Claire Fayers' The Voyage to Magical North, a middle-grade fantasy that is just as magical as it is funny.

"A robust debut, well stocked with heroic exploits, monsters, pirates, explosions, magical transformations, and life-changing adventures, and a promising series starter." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

The Accidental Pirates series:

The Voyage to the Magical North

The Journey to Dragon Island

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250115386
Publisher:	Square Fish
Publication date:	05/16/2017
Series:	Politics and Economics of the Middle EastHuman Rights: Background and Issues , #1
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Claire Fayers lives in South Wales with her husband and as many cats as she can get away with. The Voyage to Magical North is her first novel.

Read an Excerpt

The Mindfulness Bull

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.—Mary Oliver

I've always been a great daydreamer. I woolgather, I mind-wander, I don't pay attention to what's going on around me. Once I was making tea, leaning against the stove and waiting for the kettle to boil. It took me a few moments to notice the flames licking at my shirttail. My thoughts were in one world, while my body, even ablaze, was in another.

Minor mishaps like that were not infrequent in my life. I burned toast and overflowed the bathtub; I missed my train stop or freeway exit. Yet I couldn’t give up daydreaming: there was so much to think about and imagine in the playground of my mind.

Then, one day in early spring, I went for a ramble in a regional park up in the foothills. I was wandering through a grassy valley, adrift in a pleasant reverie, when I came upon a herd of cows grazing along the path. A large glossy black cow raised its head and looked at me, but I continued to stroll absentmindedly down the path. When I was a few cow's nose-lengths from the black cow, it dawned on me that this was not a cow at all, but a bull.

The bull, now undeniably a bull, lowered his head, pawed the ground, and two cartoon puffs of steam issued from his nostrils. His breath smelled herbaceous and slightly malty, as if he had been drinking beer along with his grass. I froze. I racked my brain trying to remember what to do when faced with an irate bull. Was I supposed to make myself appear larger by shouting and waving my arms around? Or should I try to seem smaller, perhaps even play dead? Should I climb a tree, dive into a river, run like hell? Then I thought, I'll just sidle by, he won't even notice me. I took one cautious step forward. The bull sashayed over—I was amazed at how quickly this massive animal could move—and butted me in the side, and I bounced across the path as effortlessly as a pebble.

Heart hammering, I scrambled to my feet and scurried away down the path. I looked over my shoulder to see if the bull was in pursuit, but he was ignoring me, enthusiastically cropping the grass where I had been standing. A thought went through my mind as clearly as if a voice had spoken in my ear: Wake up! And at that moment, I did feel remarkably, spectacularly awake. Adrenaline can have that effect on a person. The grass looked greener, the sky more cerulean. Had birdsong always sounded this melodious? Had acorns always had this marvelous conical shape, this satiny shell? Fully awake and engaged in the present moment, I felt like a new kind of animal: a mindful one. The bull had shaken and awakened me into a heightened state of awareness and it felt…wonderful.

I looked back at the herd. Some of the cows were settled down on the grass chewing their cud and gazing off into the middle distance, though I knew they were also alert and watchful, aware of any danger that might come their way. They were ruminating—consciously. I thought of the way my dog sometimes lays on the couch in a sphinx-like posture, her paws crossed in front of her, eyes half-closed, ears pricked. She appears to be dozing, yet her senses are fully engaged. Cats spend hours in the same intermediate state, projecting a sense of absolute calm while remaining intently aware of their environment. Maybe this wasn't so different from the mindfulness that humans practice. Perhaps human mindfulness was an attempt to model the observant yet meditative states so many animals slip into naturally when they are at rest.

In meditation classes they ring a bell to signal the beginning and ending of a meditation session. Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh says the sound of the bell is the Buddha's way of reminding us to come home to ourselves—in other words, to bring our attention into the present moment. "You have an appointment with life—you should not miss it," he says. "The time and the space of your appointment is the here and the now. If you are not available to life, then life will not be available to you." He says anything can be a mindfulness bell: the ringing of a phone, the barking of a dog, a traffic light—even, I suppose, a two-ton bull.

I felt grateful to the bull who had knocked me over and brought me home to myself. The bull had actually shown great restraint, using no more force than necessary to remove me from his salad bar. Every day I try to practice conscious rumination—my beastly form of mindfulness. Someday, I hope to be as skilled as the bull, standing calmly in the shade, swishing his tail at the flies, chewing his cud and ruminating on his inner world, aware of all that is within and all that is without.

Table of Contents

Prologue: At Home in Zooburbia 11

1 My Green Mansions 15

2 Conditions for Happiness 21

3 Making Salad for Deer 29

4 Rat Race 37

5 How to Make a Forest 43

6 The Mindfulness Bull 51

7 Becoming Unafraid 57

8 A Small Wild Place 65

9 The Octopus 73

10 Golden Season 79

11 The Outsiders 87

12 The Patch Table 95

13 Only a Goldfish 101

14 Wild Gardeners 109

15 Gravity 115

16 Peaceable Kingdom 121

17 Hold Fast 131

18 The Wild, Wild Turkey 137

19 Kittens to Feed 145

20 Up At Night 151

21 Pigeon Toes 157

22 Unchained Hearts 163

23 Underground 171

24 Rabbit People 179

25 Forgiveness 185

26 Happiness 191

27 Take Heart 197

28 Interpretations 203

29 Accepting the Unacceptable 209

30 Trick Riding 217

31 Roadkill 221

32 Lost Causes and Lonely Birds 229

33 An Entire Earth 237

34 Compassionate Warriors 245

35 The Most Important Thing 253

Epilogue: A Blessed Day 259

Appendix: Starting a Wildlife Garden 266

Acknowledgments 269

Editorial Reviews

"A robust debut, well stocked with heroic exploits, monsters, pirates, explosions, magical transformations, and life-changing adventures, and a promising series starter." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Welsh author Claire Fayers buoys her seaworthy series debut The Voyage to Magical North with agreeably understated humor, over-the-top sea monsters and nuanced characters. This finely spun adventure is the very definition of swashbuckler, but also thoughtfully examines ideas of story, good vs. evil, instinct vs. rules and self-discovery. A treasure." —Shelf Awareness, starred review

"The beautiful cover design reflects the charming adventure within; this multilayered fantasy handles a variety of themes, including the meaning of family, the ability of power to corrupt, and the importance of stories. Upper elementary and younger middle grade fans of Lynne Jonell’s The Sign of the Cat will be enchanted by Brine’s high seas adventure." —School Library Journal

From the Publisher

05/26/2014
In this series of ruminative essays, Moses introduces readers to the concept of "zooburbia," the name she ascribes to the "extraordinary, unruly, half-wild realm where human and animal lives overlap." The setting is frequently the author's home, a "woodsy ravine" in Oakland she sought out after a smog-drenched childhood in Los Angeles. Moses comments on the fragility of ecosystems and notes that she swapped her vegetable garden for native plants that attract more wildlife, suggesting that readers do the same. She discusses the usefulness of all creatures, from common pests to simple goldfish to meddlesome moles. Nature's "pitiless indifference to suffering," causes occasional heartache—including a baby raccoon too ill to be saved and a doomed flightless jay—and a common theme throughout is what Moses considers our responsibility toward the animals around us as well as the helplessness that often accompanies intervention. There are also more affirming essays that concern lessons on mindfulness, such as her story of a reflective ride on an Icelandic horse. Moses captures "the human desire to form an emotional bond with other creatures" and its nuanced shades of both glory and misery. (May)

Publishers Weekly

09/01/2014
Moses (former AlterNet.org editor; journalist) intersperses Buddhist wisdom with her nature lover's observant perspective in this essay collection that maintains that as humans increasingly invade natural areas, we need to be more cognizant of the animals we are displacing and those with which we may find ourselves cohabitating. These animal encounters take many shapes, according to Moses—the sparrows that have managed to find their way into home-improvement stores, the exotic animals for sale at pet stores, the feral-cat communities that are increasingly on the rise in urban areas, and the goldfish serving as advertising totems. Any opportunity to interact with another species is sacred, says the author, and offers the occasion for reflection and mindfulness. These interactions serve to highlight our interconnectedness in a world in which people seem to feel more and more isolated. Buddhist quotes throughout the essays punctuate Moses's thesis. While at times humorous and occasionally sad, the pieces are always engaging and are complemented by black-and-white linocuts. VERDICT Highly recommended for those who search out solace and inspiration in the natural world or wish to do so.—Diana Hartle, Univ. of Georgia Science Lib., Athens

Library Journal

2014-04-08
Journalist Moses shares her joy in coexisting with the wild creatures around her.After moving to suburban Oakland with her husband and cultivating a wildflower garden in her backyard that attracted birds and other wildlife, she began to appreciate the importance of urban stewardship. Drawn to the wilderness from an early age, the author explains how, where she once believed that "wild animals could be found only in a wilderness, now [she] finds wildlife everywhere: in the trees lining the sidewalks, in city parks and vacant lots…a shimmering living world of animals flourishing alongside humans." Despite the incursions on wildlife as urban development expands, by turning small patches of ground on yards, decks, terraces and rooftops into habitats, "collectively, all of these spaces add up to tremendous amounts of land." A key to this is the substitution of ornamental shrubs, flowers and manicured lawns with native plants that sustain an ecology of insects, worms, caterpillars, birds and small animals. Moses relates the couple's many adventures and mishaps with refreshing verve, beginning with a doomed plan to raise their own chickens (they provided dinner for raccoons that shared their space) and a vegetable garden that the deer munched on. They were reconciled to give up farming and happily coexist with the animals already in residence. Yet when Moses witnessed a hawk with a jay in its jaws, she confronted her own ambivalence about this threat to the harmony of her little universe; and she vigilantly restrained her her cat and dog. "When the conditions in my backyard can support the presence of the monarch butterfly, that is happiness," she writes, but there is also the pain of accepting the reality of predator and prey, life and death.A light, pleasing meditation on the joy of mindfully observing nature.

Kirkus Reviews