The Boy Who Woke the Sun
The Boy Who Woke the Sun
“Good night,” Elliot said, louder than he normally would. Then he went up the stairs to the bathroom, where he showered, brushed his teeth, drank a glass of water from the tap, moved down the hall to his bedroom, put on his pj’s, and climbed into bed. He waited for his mother to come and tell him a bedtime story, although … the odds of that actually happening were slim, as most nights, he’d be asleep before she got there.
Reaching out, he turned on Nightly Meditations for Kids, an audiobook his mother had given him when he started having trouble falling asleep. The book was read by a woman with a soothing voice. “Lie down and make yourself comfortable,” she said, same as every night. “Relax and let go. Breathe in through your nose, and as you breathe out, let go any troubling thoughts or worries.”
Elliot breathed in through his nose, but when it came to letting go any troubling thoughts or worries, he wasn’t quite so successful. His worries had become more stubborn these days. It used to be they were about goblins hiding in his laundry basket, or stepping on tarantulas when he went to the bathroom in the middle of the night. But now they were about other things – real things he’d read or heard about on the news – and maybe that’s why they were so stubborn: forests on fire, melting ice caps, an island of plastic the size of Russia, floating somewhere off the coast of Hawaii, growing larger every day. They kept him up at night. They made him feel powerless.
Elliot, who has just turned 11, lives on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. He feels especially lonely with his father away for business, his older sister turning into a self-centered teenager, and his mother constantly stuck on her computer. Additionally (as per the excerpt), he worries about the significant changes occurring on planet Earth. When Elliot goes to bed the night after discovering that his new best friend – a minnow he’d named after himself – has died, he wakes to find himself in the ocean, surrounded by floating plastic. After being pulled from this mess by an intimidating, silent man dressed entirely in black, Elliot chooses to leap back into the messy ocean. But, rather than the ocean, his leap away from the man in black eventually takes him into a strangely-lit, otherwise Earth-like world where he quickly encounters an octopus with whom he’s able to communicate, as well as lethal black butterflies. He and the octopus eventually find a safe haven amongst a group of children and their leader, Granny Yilba. Granny Yilba tells Elliot and the octopus they’re in a world named Lappanthia and that the sun hasn’t risen for years because the boy – an “immortal” – who used to wake the sun, has been imprisoned by an evil man named Handsome Ned. After hearing about a vision Elliot had, as well as his encounter with the man in black, Granny Yilba decides to accompany him and the octopus on their trip to find the “portal” back to Earth. Following a number of strange and interesting encounters, more truths about Granny Yilba and the world in which she lives are revealed. And thanks to Elliot’s perseverance, Handsome Ned is overcome and the boy who wakes the Sun is released. When Elliot finally returns to Earth, he finds himself in a hospital. But he knows that, no matter why the doctors think he’s there, the important point he has learned during his visit to Lappanthia is that “Kids can change the world if they try.”
Elliot is sensitive, brave, and persistent. The octopus is intelligent (explaining, for instance, the arrogance of humans in an entertaining and instructive conversation with Elliot) and determined to survive. Granny Yilba has insights and a sense of humour that keeps the dark at bay for the children in her charge. The characters that the three meet on their trip (including a robot) are all colourful and deftly drawn. And the book’s main message – that, as our world changes and life takes on different challenges, it can still be good and worthwhile – is empowering for young people troubled by issues such as environmental destruction and global warming.
While Elliot is only 11- years-old, given this story’s complexity, The Boy Who Woke the Sun is best suited to either older readers, strong readers aged 10 to11, or those who are able to read it with an adult.
Karen Rankin is a Toronto, Ontario, writer and editor of children’s stories.