Hazel Bly and the Deep Blue Sea by Ashley Herring Blake
Reviewed by Alisun
Meet Hazel Bly. Hazel watches her little sister Peach like a hawk, doesn’t like risk or danger, and carries a first aid kit with her wherever she goes. Hazel suffers from crippling anxiety and worry. This is made painfully clear in the first pages of Hazel Bly and the Deep Blue Sea, a middle grade novel by the wonderful Ashley Herring Blake, author of Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World (one of my favorites) and The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James.
Ashley Herring Black has a way with first chapters. She is an absolute master of raising a lot of questions and then answering them in the first 25 pages of a novel. She also has a way with characters. I don’t think I have ever read a book where I fell so hopelessly in love with a character within the first 25 pages (both Ivy in Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World and Hazel in this book). The novel is written in the first person, narrated by Hazel. We learn about Hazel’s anxieties as she fusses over her little sister Peach and argues with her mother (mama) about why Peach should NOT be allowed to go into the ocean near the house they have just moved into in Rose Harbor Maine. We also learn the source of Hazel’s fears — a kayak accident that left her face scarred and during which her other mother (mum) drown holding Hazel’s hand as Hazel clung to the rocks.
Hazel, her surviving mother (mama) and her little sister Peach have just moved for the eighth time in two years. They are renting a small house on a beach in Rose Harbor, a coastal town obsessed with mermaids and the local myth of The Rose Maid. On one of their first adventures into town, Hazel’s mom Evelyn is reunited with a childhood friend. And it’s not any childhood friend — Claire and Evelyn were best friends and had their first kiss with each other. Hazel and Peach are told this by Claire’s daughter Lemon, who is Hazel’s age. A lot of the book centers on Hazel’s struggles: with her mom who does not want to talk about what happened, the friendship and developing relationship between Claire and Evie, the friendships she’s developing with Lemon (who is also grieving the death of her twin sister), and the constant worry she has about keeping her little sister safe.
Ashley Herring Blake is brilliant in centering queer content without making it the only thing a book is about. While the book is clearly about having two moms — this is actually just the context for the central theme of the book — the unbearable grief of losing a parent. There is also a non binary character, Jules, who is subtly a romantic interest for Hazel.
Another of Herring Blake’s talents lies in her ability to write middle grade characters and relationships that are authentic and richly developed. Hazel and Lemon learn how to trust each other and navigate their grief without being isolated by it.
Hazel Bly and the Deep Blue Sea would be an excellent read-aloud in an upper elementary classroom. It includes LGBTQ characters and content, providing representation for students with same-sex parents and engaging with non-binary characters and queer first crushes.