~Read and Respond: Children of the Sea~

The short story that caught and held my attention the most out of the ones we read was Children of the Sea. The story is written in the form of letters written back and forth between two young lovers who were living in Haiti. The boy had made it onto a boat that set sail to America for a better life but the girl  was still back in Haiti with her parents so there was no way these letters could reach the recipients. But it was a touching story nonetheless.
Your typical 'love story' (if you can even call this a love story) wouldn't normally be found in this format, or even surrounding this topic. Most love stories are the classic hackneyed Romeo and Juliet romances. Bleh. But this story was more than just about two lovers; it also majorly focused on what was happening in Haiti and why people were fleeing. During that time, the government was in turmoil and wanted to eradicate all those who spoke out against the government. The people were literally like slaves in their country, forced to do horrible things for the amusement of the soldiers just to stay alive. It was a very hard time indeed, which is partially why I was drawn to this story.
What's also nice about reading a story written in an epistolary style is that we can get two or more (in this case two) points of view. We are able to see what both the boy and the girl are facing on the boat and back in Haiti. It's so touching how they continued to write to each other even though they knew neither one was going to get these letters. And it's interesting how the letters from the boy stopped, leaving us to try and fill in the blank as to what happened to him (did he drown, is he alive, etc.).
All in all this was a very interesting story (from what we read) and a bittersweet one at that. It's nice to see something other than some sappy love story surface in the great sea of literature. And one that I found interesting too.