Dive Book One: The Discovery

Title: Dive Book One: The Discovery

Author: Gordon Korman

Genre: Fiction- Adventure

# of Pages: 141

Books Read: 6/50

Now that it is officially summer vacation, I'm finding more time to read, and also more time to do other things, like drink coffee and watch the morning news. This week I'm working on finishing up Dive, the first in a trilogy by Gordon Korman. I think that in order to fully understand the whole story, I would need to read the whole trilogy, but this is a great start! It was a fun book to read by the beach on my breaks from lifeguarding. 

Dive is set on the Caribbean island of Martinique. 4 kids have been chosen for a special summer internship, supposedly to help a scientific expedition. However, for most of the first half of the book, the ship captain keeps leaving them behind on shore! The book is a mystery; what are they really looking for underwater, and why are the 4 kids really there?

Kaz is a hockey player from Canada who recently injured another player and wants this summer to be an escape from the grief and guilt he's feeling. Dante is an incredible photographer, but isn't the greatest diver and seems to be having trouble with his vision. Adriana's rich parents needed something for her to keep busy with over the summer, and while that might not be the best start, Adriana's expertise in history and natural grace in the water prove to be an asset to the team. Star is the best diver among them, and is the first to tell you so. Her fiesty personality and determination are no match for her physical disability, due to her cerebral palsy, on land. The characters are a diverse group, and with so much diversity there's something for any reader to relate to. 

My favorite part of the book wasn't the main story, but rather in a side story interspersed between chapters. In the side story, we're taken back to a ship in 1665, where a young boy works as the captain's boy. Life at sea in the 1600's was very difficult, and the captain and crew lived by a very unjust social code. Samuel struggles with much more than the characters in the contemporary story, and the history is just so interesting.