On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness: A Book Review and a Memory

When I first read Andrew Peterson’s title, “On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness,” I remembered being there myself.

My father was a fisherman, and it was nighttime on the Atlantic in January. The slap of gentle waves against the ship made me sleepy as we sat silently side by side, staring out into the blackness, unable to see where the water met the sky.

It made me think of those ancient words, “And the earth was without form and void, and the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep.”

Night deepened as the sea deepened, but suddenly, my attention was arrested by a faint red glow coming up from under the water. At first, red and black mingled so that I wasn’t sure it was light at all. Then, I was frightened.

I asked my father, “Do you see that glowing? Is there another ship? Is it on fire?” 

In Peterson’s tale, the first book of The Wingfeather Saga, young Janner Igiby chafes in the routine humdrum of life with his family in their cottage beside the Dark Sea of Darkness. He resents having to take care of his younger brother, Tink, and sister, Leeli, as he wrestles with the coming-of-age questions that define adolescence. Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?

Janner’s most pressing question is who was his father? Why hasn’t his mother or grandfather told him anything about his father? All he has is a sketch of his father as a boy, standing proudly in a sailboat on the sea.

As Janner and his siblings encounter conflict with the Fangs of Dang, reptilian monsters who rule their town and country, light begins to glow at the edges of the darkness, and Janner begins to discover that he is more than just a boy living on the edge of the sea…..

Read the rest of this review HERE.