The seed for Safe Harbor was planted one cold, blustery winter day when I spotted a lone seal on a beach in Rhode Island. By the time “my” seal (which was quite well as it turned out) returned to the water, my sixth novel for young people was starting to take shape. I could see two kids rescuing a seal who was being strangled to death by plastic.
As with all my novels Safe Harbor is more than an animal rescue story – other themes and motifs naturally layered themselves into the story’s fabric. Geetha is an Indian immigrant whose parents are divorced. When she’s bullied at school, she finds solace in nature and music and writing poetry — just as I did, when I was a child. Geetha struggles to adjust to American life and feels lonely and homesick for India – until she comes across a stranded seal pup on a walk along the seashore. She makes friends with Miguel, a Mexican-American boy, who is as keen as she is to rescue the seal and help it recover.
Helping the seal also becomes the first step in the kids’ environmental activism, which grows into a greater desire to combat climate change and other kinds of pollution. The small steps they take empower them to dream of larger efforts they can take in the future to fight for planetary conservation. Safe Harbor is a story that acknowledges the magnitude and gravity of threats facing our green earth and its blue seas, while also preserving hope, because, as Geetha (the protagonist) says, “Hope is a cork that never stops bobbing on the waves of life’s ocean.”
Safe Harbor was especially fun to write because before I became an author, I was an oceanographer. And at the time, BIPOC females were even rarer in the field than they are today. When I wrote Safe Harbor, my yearning to see more BIPOC female scientists resulted in the creation of Dr. Williams – a Black veterinarian who is vital to the seal rehabilitation effort. Safe Harbor is the kind of story I would have loved when I was in elementary school, a BIPOC-centered story featuring a child who forms a special bond with a rescued animal,
in which brown and Black characters take the lead in conservation of our animals and planet. (Sadly, we still have too few of these in children’s literature, although there are growing numbers of wonderful nature/ STEM/ pollution / climate change themed stories written by BIPOC authors, such as Nikki Grimes’s picture book, Walk in the Woods, Margarita Engle’s young adult novel Wild Dreamers, and middle grade novels With Just One Wing by Brenda Woods and Paradise on Fire by Jewell Parker Rhodes.)
Although I am a scientist, I also sincerely and deeply value traditional ways in which ancient cultures – including my own – connected to nature. I wanted my protagonist to reflect my respect for traditional Indian and Hindu relevance for our planet and everything that lives on it. In Safe Harbor, Geetha feels intimately connected to our green earth and our blue oceans in ways that transcend science while drawing on. the wisdom of her ancestors and her traditions and heritage. Geetha loves to play the simple bamboo flute that is Lord Krishna’s favorite, and it will come as no great surprise to children like her who have grown up hearing about and seeing images of Lord Krishna mesmerizing wild animals with his music, that she believes her music can help heal the injured seal.
Geetha’s mother is also a character who uses both science and traditional wisdom to her benefit. She breaks the stereotype of an unsupportive parent with depression, and is a strong, independent and caring mother, who (like me) manages her mental health with yoga and meditation, as well as medication and talk therapy.
I hope you’ll read and love Safe Harbor as much as I loved writing this story that brought my literary and scientific worlds together. And if you’re a parent or educator concerned about how to make reading about climate change actionable, relevant, purposeful and engaging and inspiring to our young people so they feel empowered to combat ecological threats (without aggravating thier environmental anxiety), here are two links with resources, activity starters, discussion questions and more:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HrVU-N8wXEfPCDqtPQiQ5LjeBV45uXo7/view?usp=drivesdk
Padma Venkatraman (padmavenkatraman.com) was born in India and became an American after living in five countries and working as an oceanographer. She also wrote Born Behind Bars (South Asia Book Award, Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People), The Bridge Home (Walter Award, Golden Kite Award, Global Read-Aloud), A Time to Dance (IBBY selection, ALA Notable), Island’s End (CCBC Choice, South Asia Book Award), and Climbing the Stairs (ALA/Amelia Bloomer List, Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People). She lives in Rhode Island.
