The monster missions

A talented young gadgeteer joins the defenders of humanity's scattered remnants against sea monsters of myth, legend, and prehistory. Fifty years after the event known as the Tide Rising turned Earth into an ocean planet, 12-year-old Berkley and her best friend, Garth, work as scavengers on the Atlas, the decaying former cruise ship that is their home. Life is hard: Child labor is a necessity, people are crowded onto ships, and the diet is monotonously fish-based. Scavenging is dangerous work that involves diving for materials in abandoned towns now underwater. The two friends are recruited to join the crew of the Britannica, a research submarine designed to study the resurgent flood of marine creatures formerly thought legendary or extinct. Martin positively pours the monsters into this action-oriented adventure, drawing on both outside sources and her imagination to engineer a nonstop series of brushes with boojums ranging from mighty megalodon and evocatively named Hydramonsterus serpentinius to a glutinous "hidden-fanged loogie" and Elmer, a gigantic octopus more mischievous than malign. As, along the way to a climactic rescue, the Britannica is rammed, swallowed whole, even attacked by pirates, Berkley plunges enthusiastically into both studies and narrow squeaks…leaving her well set up for future exploits and terrifying encounters. Berkley and Garth present as White; the supporting cast is varied in skin tone. All monsters, all the time…well, except for those pirates. (Fantasy. 10-13) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.