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STORM

Donna Jo Napoli

STORM is a survival adventure of intense drama, set during the greatest flood in history. Alone in the rapidly rising waters and desperate to survive, a teenage girl named Sebah takes refuge among the animals in the massive wooden boat known as Noah's ark.
The first raindrops fall. But there's not just a drop or two of rain, which would be unusual enough in sixteen-year-old Sebah's desert home. This is a powerful rainfall, then a deluge. Then the waters rise and the sea roils. And still the rain does not stop. Cut off from her family, with a tiny bobcat kit clinging to her for life, Sebah tries to survive the flood. It means becoming almost an animal herself-she will eat anything to feed herself and her kit. She longs for a companion, but the companion who happens upon her, a 17-year-old boy named Aban, is not who she wants to be with. What if he harms her? What if he kills her? Still, Sebah and Aban must aid and protect each other if they are to survive. Waterlogged and starving, they are on the brink of giving up when looming before them is the largest floating vessel they could ever picture or imagine. If they can scramble aboard, maybe they get dry and get food and live. And soon, with the aid of an extraordinary pair of helpers, Sebah is a stowaway on Noah's ark. Told with Donna Jo Napoli's characteristic urgency and immediacy, this is an authentic, raw, thoroughly-researched, action-paced story with crossover appeal to teens and adults. Donna Jo Napoli is the distinguished author of some twenty novels for young adults. Her historical fiction titles include the award-winning Stones in the Water, Hush, and The Smile, and her fairy-tale retellings, for which she is perhaps best known, include Zel, Bound, and The Magic Circle. Donna Jo is also the author of Song of the Magdalene, based on the Biblical charater Mary Magdalene. ("Knowledge of ancient Hebrew culture, an ability to express the feelings and anguish of an intense young woman, and skillful weaving of plot and character create a gripping novel that is hard to put down."-School Library Journal.) When she is not writing, Donna Jo is a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, where she is currently conducting research into storytelling through sign language. Donna Jo earned both her undergraduate degree in mathematics and her graduate degree in linguistics from Harvard University. She lives with her family in Pennsylvania.
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Published 2014-02-01 by Simon & Schuster

Comments

This guttural rendition of Noah's Ark becomes an intriguing piece of historical fiction in the hands of master storyteller Napoli. The first person present tense and gritty survival story will resonate with fans of The Hunger Games, but Napoli packs deeper themes into the murky depths of this tale.. [Teens will connect with this remarkably courageous girl in her primal fight for family and survival.

... fascinating...a global tragedy brings about enlightenment in ways unexpected by the characters. This is a tale of survival, empathy, and having faith.

Napoli's focus on Sebah's immediate circumstances allows her to grow organically as a character, bringing a satisfying realism to this familiar story. Read more...

Napoli draws from the book of Genesis for a basic outline, but she takes ample liberties with the rest of the story, presenting an obstinate, guilt-ridden Noah and an angry family resentful over their wretched circumstances, all through the eyes of a clever, headstrong young girl who learns to thrive on hope.

Sebah's journey is one of profound hope and personal growth. Storm, an intimate reimagination of the biblical flood, shows the triumph of one determined human spirit in the face of a divine catastrophe.