If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere as coastal as Dunbar, the sea inevitably becomes a part of you. The tides, the colours, the clouds reflected on grey or blue or black; the wind whipping up the sand or the dazzling high-summer sun winking off the foam; the rattle of pebbles as they dance up on the shoreline with the advancing, retreating waves; and the horizon heralding the next offering. The sea and all its personalities becomes, somehow, necessary in a way that makes it utterly unthinkable to live too far from it.
I couldn’t have set my first book anywhere but by the sea – this sea – carving around it the story of two young friends who go to the beach one summer day and discover so much about each other as they play – sometimes together, sometimes simply alongside one another – at the edge of the water. Around them stride the curlews, oystercatchers and gulls we recognise so well in this stunning corner of the world, foraging amongst the shingle.
As ever, there is so much to be found at the beach, and the friends take their pleasure in very different treasure hunts: one for shells, the other for stones. But, as the story progresses, what becomes clear – partly through words but also in acclaimed artist Yu Rong’s tender drawings – is that the boys are on a very different sort of treasure hunt on the beach that day.
What the boys discover, down by the shore, in amongst the shells and pebbles, seabirds and spray, is each other. The beach is the place where their friendship – in amongst all their differences and idiosyncrasies – blossoms, and which offers them the opportunity to explore what true acceptance – true friendship – may look like.
We all take different treasure from our trips to our precious beaches: physical pieces and soulful pieces. That landscape and what we take from it is never the same on any two days or for any two people. But there is a profound beauty in all that difference – in all those finds – which offers real storytelling treasure.
Fiona,x
The Boy who Loves to Lick the Wind £12.99
Available to buy at Found Tues - Sat 10 am - 5pm
