Captain Jenny and the Sea of Wonders is a companion to Thornton’s Kalifax. Although it makes reference to the events of the first book, Captain Jenny can be read on its own. In it, Jenny, a “proud and wordy” orphan fisher-girl and friend of Tom, hero of Kalifax, is summoned to adventure by an otter on behalf of the Maid of Saltwaters. She is given the Otter, a small galley of the sort that sailed across the Mediterranean (aside from its cannon), and a crew. Her quest is to sail the Sea of Wonders Lost and Found and find the Lost City that sank below the waters an age before. The crew, especially the Cook, are reluctant to be captained by a girl so young, and are not easily won round.
Jenny and the sailors have many adventures in the perilous and magic-ridden Sea of Wonders, recalling but not merely repeating those of Odysseus. After most of the crew become corsair captives, Jenny, the Cook, and Tom’s dog Sparky reach the lost city. There a bell must be rung to wake the sleeping inhabitants and stop the City sinking again. Jenny believes this to be the object of her quest – the preservation of the City and a new age of glorious wonders, the end of the world’s troubles. But as she is about to ring the bell, she reconsiders the words of an oracle and a story told in pictures on a temple’s walls. She realizes she has interpreted the pictures west to east, rather than the more natural succession of east to west. What she has seen of the sleeping inhabitants increases her uncertainty. It suddenly seems possible that the preservation of the City will begin a new age of terror and desolation, not end one. She chooses not to ring the bell, and a great wave crashes over the City, sinking it again. Jenny and the mortally-injured Cook have to swim. The Cook’s eventual death is moving; it is a powerful piece of writing on a subject often handled in children’s books only through safe conventions. Jenny and Sparky are found by her crew and they make their way home. Her choice has ushered in a new age.
Jenny is endearing and credible; she is an experienced sailor and quick-thinking explorer, but she is also a young person inexperienced in leading others. She matures through the book, learning from the crew and her own experience. In addition, like many intelligent and widely-read children, she suffers from an urge to hold forth on anything and everything at the slightest excuse, which is both part of the book’s comic appeal and a handy method of explaining Jenny’s world as well as new words and concepts.
The story is told with convincing detail in nautical matters and a delicate balance of humour and seriousness. Throughout, Thornton deftly weaves together magic and practicalities to create a very real and dangerous world that is full of wonder and mythic potential. Captain Jenny is an outstanding and original fantasy. Thornton’s website promises a third book about Tom and Jenny is in the works, which is definitely something to look forward to.
