Dare the ocean to dance and it’ll
flow
flip
throw
me back,
tease with swells so I keep
watching
waiting
hoping
for the bigger wave,
that might take me all
the way to
the shore.

Thirteen-year-old Ava loves to surf and to sing. Singing and reading Rumi poems settle her mild OCD, and catching waves with her best friend, Phoenix, lets her fit in—her olive skin looks tan, not foreign. But then Ava has to spend the summer
before ninth grade volunteering at the hospital, to follow in her single mother’s footsteps to become a doctor. And when Phoenix’s past lymphoma surges back, not even surfing, singing, or poetry can keep them afloat, threatening Ava’s hold
on the one place and the one person that make her feel like she belongs. With ocean-like rhythm and lyricism, this novel in verse is about a girl who rides the waves, tumbles, and finds her way back to the shore.