By Gloria Barnett (author) Part of the The Lucy Morgan Adventure Series series
"This eco-focused adventure sees 12-year-old Lucy and friends come together to share in the joy of the local ocean life and fight to save the coastline."
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Lucy and friends Jack and Solomon love to dive and explore the ocean, working at the Dive centre outside of school. This passion is the focus of our story, introducing us to Lucy as she keeps a student dive safe. There’s plenty of underwater explorations throughout this book for fellow sea lovers, with exciting encounters with a range of different creatures.
With a love of the sea and the creatures within comes a focus on where the underwater world meets the land, with concerns about seagrass habitats being damaged by people and boats, protecting dugong from boat propellers and stopping turtle beaches being destroyed. When Lucy overhears plans for hotels to be built on the already protected Turtle hatching beaches, Lucy and her friends work to petition the council to stop it, coming up with their own solutions.
But this fight to protect the turtles gets more exciting as they must stop suspicious visitors who’ve arrived to sabotage the beach and destroy this year’s hatchlings. I liked that there was a mixture of Lucy and her friends working together to create a realistic plan to present and stop the construction as well as having a more thrilling direct action in stopping the saboteurs which fits within children’s fiction.
The Secrets of the Shallows is an entertaining and exciting read that is also educational about marine life and its habitats. I hadn’t heard of a lot of the animals featured in the book like Dugong, or a Titan Triggerfish, and the photo guide at the end was a great addition to provide information on the animals as well as a photo that can help the reader bring them to life, although colour photos would have been even better to help with this.
Although educational and containing a lot of information, it’s all deftly woven into the story in a way that is engaging and entertaining. This is a great book that has a strong eco theme and will suit readers who love the sea and learning about all different kinds of sea creatures.
Winner of the International Impact Award 2025 - an award recognising a children's story that is inspirational and motivational.
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The Secrets of the Shallows. A Lucy Morgan Adventure Story (Book Two in the series.)
Help your child to understand they can make a difference to the world. An adventure where a promise to protect ocean creatures leads to challenges in the underwater world.
Having settled on Pontus Island in the Caribbean, 12-year-old Lucy enjoys using her new diving skills with her friends Jack and Solomon.
When they discover how human activity is destroying the habitats of rare ocean creatures, they are determined to protect both marine creatures and the island’s special natural environment.
The Lucy Morgan Adventures are written by real-life ocean explorer and educator, Gloria Barnett. Many young people in the UK know her affectionately as the Weirdfish Lady due to her fascinating school workshops, talks and published teaching resources.
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Winner of the International Impact Award 2025 - an award recognising a children's story that is inspirational and motivational. The Secrets of the Shallows.
The LoveReading4Kids Editorial Team have read and reviewed The Secrets of the Shallows and determined it is suitable for children aged 9-12 years old
The Secrets of the Shallows features in the following genres: Featured Books for 9+ readers, Featured Books for 11+ readers, Indie Author Books , Indie Books We Love, Adventure Stories, Crime & Mystery, Ecological and Environmental Interest - Non Fiction, Children's and Young Adult Fiction, Recommendations, Children’s, Teenage and Educational, Children’s / Teenage: Social issues / topics, Personal Social Health Economic (PSHE)
Paperback. £8.99, down from the £9.99 cover price. In Stock.
The Secrets of the Shallows was written by Gloria Barnett and published by Softwood Books
The Secrets of the Shallows has 192 pages
Yes it is part of The Lucy Morgan Adventure Series series
£8.99, reduced from £9.99. In Stock.
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