White Wave

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Razzell’s fourth young-adult novel, which revisits the general time
period and setting found in Snow Apples, her first book, also returns to
the themes of familial conflict and identity. Over the year beginning in
June 1945, 15-year-old Jenny Johns, who lives in the small B.C. mill
town of Port Peters, comes to discover much about herself and her
parents, Al and Violet. Since Al enlisted in the wartime navy five years
earlier, Jenny has seen her beloved father only three times, and his
last leave was two years ago. Jenny has a Cinderella-like relationship
with her shrewish mother, who appears to favor Jenny’s 13-year-old
sister, Margaret, 13. A constant scold, Violet punishes Jenny by
removing privileges, such as attending the final school dance, and by
assigning her Margaret’s chores. With the war’s end, the family
anticipates Al’s return, but instead they simply receive a cheque, an
act Violet interprets as Al’s way of saying he has deserted them.
While attending Grade 10 in a nearby community, Jenny boards with an old
friend of her father’s, Florence Busby, whose guarded comments
regarding Al and a photograph of a young woman greatly pique Jenny’s
curiosity. Learning that her father may be a commercial fisherman living
and working nearby, Jenny successfully goes in search of him and the
tough answers to her many questions. Al’s act of naming his new
fishing vessel “White Wave,” the meaning of Jenny’s name, signals
the pair’s eventual reconciliation. While not as tightly written as
Razzell’s earlier works, White Wave is still a fine read for junior-
and senior-high students. Recommended.