When Sally O’Malley Discovered the Sea
by Karen Cushman
Intermediate, Middle School    Knopf    240 pp.
3/25    9780593650578    $17.99
Library ed.  9780593650585    $20.99
e-book ed.  9780593650592    $10.99

Sally, aged thirteen, is a plucky heroine in the best tradition of the orphan narrative. It’s 1894 in central Oregon, and Sally has had it with being demeaned, so she heads off on a journey west to discover the sea. Lacking family, friends, and resources, she is thrown onto her own resilience and bravery. Linking up with a kindly trader woman who is traveling with a cart and donkey, Sally takes on the task of helping to deliver a small boy, a sort of Little Lord Fauntleroy figure, to his family on the coast. A loyal dog completes the cast. Along the way, as she deals with dangers and challenges, Sally comes out of her protective shell and learns to trust other people and her own strengths. The narrative style is jaunty: page two gives us “goldurn it,” and along the way we are treated to generous helpings of historical linguistic color (“varmints,” “jumpin’ jiminy,” “flapdoodle”). Some of the landscape descriptions tend toward the travelogue, but the choreography of peril and refuge is well managed as readers find themselves cheering Sally on to her happy ending.

From the ">May/June 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.