Summary

 In the Wanderer, thirteen-year-old Sophie is the only girl on a voyage with her family across the Atlantic Ocean.   The book goes through the struggles that teenagers might face.  Sophie and her cousin Cody keep a log, Sophie because she wants to remember her adventures and Cody because it’s a school assignment.   The stories written in the journal consist of various feelings and struggles faced by Sophie and Cody.  The Wanderer combines adventure, relationships, and in depth characterization to tell a story of travels to a distant land.  Although the final destination is England to see their beloved grandfather, Bompie, they make many stops along the way to meet old friends and make boat repairs.  These times are filled with anxiety to get on with the real voyage, the one across the Atlantic.  While on land at their stops, Cody and Sophie run off and explore.  They meet interesting people and go searching for ghosts, who allegedly occupy parts of Grand Manon Island.  While on their journey on the island, Cody asks about Sophie’s real parents.  Everyone in the family knows that Sophie was adopted, but Sophie refuses to accept it.  Whenever the topic of her real parents comes up she says that her parents are in Tennessee, where their home is.  Cody inquires further on the subject and Sophie indirectly describes the situation.  Sophie’s biological parents couldn’t take care of her and didn’t want her around.  This is the first time we see Sophie open up, even if she does it indirectly.  Throughout their voyage, the relationship between Cody and Sophie becomes very close and they stand up for each other on multiple occasions.  Cody and Sophie seem to be the ones that add joy to rough days out at sea.  Along the way Sophie is introduced to all kinds of different animals, her experiences with fish are not the best.  When she sees the plankton, whales, dolphins, and birds, she is in a whole other world. Sophie thinks about things very deeply, like where the whales came from and why they follow the boat.  Sophie’s biggest aspiration is to see Bompie.  She tells “his stories” to the rest of the crew during their journey.  All the stories consist of a fear of water but the urge to keep going back in.  This gives us an insight on what Sophie really feels about the ocean.  They reach a point in their voyage where the waves are enormous and the boat is struck by a wave and the crew is shaken.  We learn here that this brings back bad memories of a big wave that Sophie was caught in at a young age.  The journey starts out as a voyage from America to England but in the end the real voyage for Sophie was internal.