1. Allegory
2. Animals
3. Art motifs
4. Book design
5. Curiosity
6. Families
7. Home
8. Hope
9. Imagination
10. Loneliness
11. Loss
12. Mystery
13. Perspectives (Art)
14. Sadness
15. Seas and oceans

‘Who lives in that cottage by the sea? I wish, I wish, I wish it was me.’ A girl rises from the sea, presumably lost. Is she a ghost? A survivor of a shipwreck? A dream or an apparition? The opening spreads depict wild seas, a ship listing dangerously to the side, as if about to sink, and a whirlpool in the foreground. The next frame depicts the girl surfacing. The ship is an arcane sailing vessel decked with rigging from an earlier era. The girl is wearing a slip-like dress akin to a nightdress.

She observes the family who live in the cottage and plaintively wonders whether she might live there too. In a subsequent frame a headstone for a grave lies as if damaged by age, outside the fence surrounding the cottage. To add to the unearthliness, some images depict dolphins gambolling first in water and then in the sky. The dog, cat and bird appear to sense the girl whilst the family appear oblivious. Shells also appear as motifs. And in one later scene the mother sees through her window the girl standing in water under a light-filled tree. The final frame has the mother holding hands with the girl, as the family play on the beach. This image is a hopeful one, albeit it doesn’t seek to resolve the mystery explored throughout.

This lyrical text is a masterpiece in both writing and illustration. Jane Tanner’s atmospheric paintings are hauntingly beautiful. Using charcoal, charcoal pencil and coloured pencil the largely monochromatic images use colours which are muted greys and browns with green tinges throughout. The cover illustration depicting a girl seen from the side, gazing enigmatically towards the sea, references and was inspired by David Friedrich’s The Monk by the Sea (1808–1810). Tanner notes that she has long admired Friedrich’s mystical, allegorical paintings of nature and solitude.

Wild and Tanner collaborated on ‘There’s a Sea in my Bedroom’ in 1984, the first book for both. In this latest work they have created a contemporary allegory of astounding power and suggestiveness.

‘Girl From the Sea’ was a 2021 CBCA Notable book.

Margaret Wild was shortlisted for the IBBY Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing in 2022.

1. Allen & Unwin Teachers’ Notes for Girl from the Sea https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/dimo.allenunwin.com/assets/teaching_resource/9781760524302.pdf
2. Read Plus July 26, 2020. Fran Knight reviews ‘Girl from the Sea’ by Margaret Wild and Jane Tanner https://www.readplus.com.au/reviews/girl-from-the-sea-by-margaret-wild
3. Schizanthusnerd blog 9 July 2020. Review of ‘Girl from the Sea’ by Margaret Wild and Jane Tanner https://schizanthusnerd.com/2020/07/09/girl-from-the-sea/
4. A Word about Books Blog 25 January 2021. Review of ‘Girl from the Sea’ by Margaret Wild and Jane Tanner https://www.awordaboutbooks.com/blog---archive/girl-from-the-sea-margaret-wild-illustrated-by-jane-tanner
5. Jane Tanner https://www.janetanner.com.au/
6. Kiddle ‘Margaret Wild Facts for Kids’ https://kids.kiddle.co/Margaret_Wild
7. Wikipedia entry ‘The Monk by the Sea’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monk_by_the_Sea