Children from the Sea [Paperback]

The cover photograph is rather odd and the story is odd too. It is a fantasy of children being converted to dolphins, staying in the sea for a few hundred years and getting reconverted into children thanks to a kiss from an adolescent girl, Katie.

Katie is forced to relocate from England to a small village in Spain because of her father's business. What she thought would be a boring life turned out to be quite an adventure thanks to the dolphins / children, the eldest being a little elder to her. It would not be fair to reveal what happens after they get transformed into children and the ending is rather interesting.

Lookman was born in Surrey in 1950, a time when children roamed freely and adventurously and made their own entertainment (not having so many gadgets to distract them as now). His interest in Sufism led to his use of the pseudonym Lookman, after the wise sage in Qur'an. The Sufi leanings of the author come through in the story and if you are a fundamentalist in any religion (something alien to Sufism), you may not relate to the story.

The story is interesting enough to keep reader's interest and the style is good enough to keep you going. Some passages in the story are moving and the account of religious persecution strikes a chord even today!

Though the book is meant for children (I would say the suggested age group is 10 to 15), it may appeal to elders too, especially those whose inner child is still alive and active. Give it a try and decide whether it is for you. I would rate it GOOD.

When Katie reluctantly left London under her parent's spell of an imagined long vacation to a remotely situated fishing village in Spain promising a year round Mediterranean sun, and thought she would never get to date a gorgeous-looking boy the type of those she had to leave behind, little did she know that a one kiss could transform a non-ageing dolphin into romance with a mystery flavour. Naji.

What will strike you is how Lookman succeeds in bringing you into the centre of the story where you find yourself as the "unnamed" character, trying desperately to do two things for Naji--help him find himself; and tell Katie's world about his stolen civilisation.

Lookman's Children From The Sea is a page-turner. You will love this book.

Michael Flowers, author of Michael Flowers' Jackal

I had a difficult time deciding at what age range this book was targeted. I don't know what the author had in his own mind, but I finally settled on a target audience of ages 12-15. Except for a provocative word or phrase here or there, it might also be read by middle grade children ages 10 and 11.

The book is set in a remote fishing village on the coast of Spain, where an English family is bent on starting a new life as proprietors of a shop in a newly renovated hotel. However, its presence is unpopular with the local fishermen. They believe the tourist trade will have a negative impact on the white dolphins in the bay, who they believe protect the town.

The irony is, the white dolphins are Muslim children who had been forced out of their homes in this same village during the time of the Spanish Inquisition and who had escaped with their lives by going into the sea and becoming dolphins. The story revolves around the English family who are trying to establish their new life in the village where they encounter hostile interactions with some of the inhabitants and have to deal with the sudden appearance of two of the dolphins/Muslim children who, with the assistance of Katie, the English family's teenage daughter, morph themselves back into human form. The children from the sea have decided they want to come back to land and reclaim their place in society. In the end, they find that their Muslim culture, rooted in centuries past, doesn't fit well with modern Western society.

Which brings me to the message put forth by the author. I believe books targeted at children, no matter their age, should have a message of hope; in this instance, that people with diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds can find common ground and live together in peace and harmony. However, in this story, fear of the unknown and close-mindedness wins out. This is too bad because children have the ability to adapt more so than most adults. I think that most people believe that it is our children who should, and will, learn a new and positive way of thinking about problem solving in a diverse and complex world.

My hope for this book is that the young readers can go beyond the ending and the entertainment value of the story itself; that they will think about why it is that people fear the unknown, and how these fears and misunderstandings may cause undue unrest and disorder in the world. If that happens, then the message in this tale can have a constructive and optimistic impact.

Despite my "message" misgivings, Children Of The Sea is an imaginative, well written story and I recommend it with the expectation that it will provoke thought and a concern for how different cultures, races and religions might interact with each other in a modern world on a more understanding and peaceful basis.

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