Knife's Edge

Knife’s Edge, Hope Larson, 224 pages

Twins Alex and Cleo Dodge have found their father at last! After rescuing him from the dread pirate Worley, they recover on the Almira, and discover the compass and knife they were given as children are a map leading to buried treasure. Captain Tarboro and the Almira set sail, but secrets from their past are catching up with them.

I’m writing this review a couple weeks after I finished the book, so my opinions have muddied a bit. I don’t think I liked this as much as the previous volume, Compass South. There’s more moral grey areas and protagonists making bad decisions and saying hurtful things to each other, which can be fine in certain contexts but wasn’t really what I wanted going in. I loved the art, though. Rebecca Mock’s illustrations really shine when showing the broad tan decks and white sails of the Almira, with the blue sky behind, though part of that is probably my own biases showing as a sailor and ship-lover.