Orphans of the Tide

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Unlike everyone else, Ellie is convinced that the boy, Seth, knows nothing of the Enemy and is innocent and so begins a race against time to clear his name. The journey that will take her to all corners of the city but no amount of running will stop the dangerous Inquisitors hunting Seth down. To clear Seth’s name Ellie may have to reveal her own dark secret. In saving Seth she will be forced to condemn herself…

The critically-acclaimed Orphans of the Tide trilogy reaches its spine-tingling climax and dramatic conclusion. Perfect reading for fans of His Dark Materials or Vashti Hardy. Objectives: Explore the theme of fear in an extract; write a diary entry from Ellie’s perspective; explain the significance of plot twists in Orphans of the Tide. If you were registered for the newsletter, you will now receive the Puffin Schools newsletter, which is filled with all the latest information about accompanying resources and upcoming shows. Ladybird, Puffin and Penguin are imprints of Penguin Random House UK. Across their extensive list, we believe there is a story for every child, everywhere.

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Orphans of the Tide is singularly brilliant. So inventive, and weird, and beautiful, with just the right amount of bite and darkness. I predict big things! - Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Girl of Ink and Stars and The Mercies Only Ellie, a fearless young inventor living in a workshop crammed with curiosities, believes he’s innocent. My ultimate favourite character in this book is without a doubt Castion. I think he is brave and, although Ellie has a place in his heart, he always tries to do what is best for everyone. Even after he finds out about Ellie’s secret, it doesn’t change how he feels for her. Struan Murray (Author) Struan Murray is Scottish and grew up in Edinburgh, the youngest of a large, rowdy family of redheads. His first publication was a drawing in Pingu Magazine, aged seven, but his debut novel, Orphans of the Tide has attracted rather more critical acclaim. When he's not writing, Struan is a lecturer at the University of Oxford.

Energetic and inventive . . . and with some startling surprises, this is also touching about friendship, siblings, loss and courage’ Nicolette Jones, The Sunday Times (Children’s Book of the Week)

Pupil reviews

Gripping . . . with a touch of Frances Hardinge's bizarre brilliance Imogen Russell Williams, The Guardian A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. There's a literal Deus ex machina in this, and it is utilised incredibly effectively. This is a story about gods battling for the future of the whole world, and watching their schemes, manipulations, and best efforts in another realm being mirrored in the main one are exciting and thrilling. Original and enticing, this is one of the best fantasy stories I have read for a long time. There’s a mix of peril and intrigue in all the right proportions, a strong female lead and a well-constructed fantasy world with its own haunting mythology that really does immerse the reader from the start.

When a mysterious boy washes in with the tide, the citizens believe he's the Enemy - the god who drowned the world - come again to cause untold chaos. Quite possibly... the best children’s book I’ve read in five years?!? Or longer? To be perfectly honest, it’s been a very long time since I’ve been so successfully gripped by a novel of any kind. And ‘Orphans’ really did carry me away — to an utterly brilliant world that I just want to know more and more about. It reminded me of a blend of ‘His Dark Materials’ and ‘The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray’, with some Tim Lebbon body horror flung in for good measure. After reading Chapter 15 of Orphans of the Tide, your class will complete this comprehension which includes retrieval, vocabulary and inference type questions. The Story-Makers Show was known as Puffin Virtually Live up until March 2019. The content and ambition of the show remains the same: to give every pupil the opportunity to engage with authors and illustrators in their own classroom using the power of the internet. I loved the premise for this story. I liked the idea of The Enemy housed in a Vessel. I loved the interplay between Finn and Ellie. I did love how the ending came together and I was glad I made it to the end.The plot of the book was predictable. As soon as you began to understand the world this is set in, it becomes quite easy to guess the outcome of everything. I don’t know how well the age group this is aimed at would guess the plot but as an adult reading this, I thought it was quite predictable. I would also like to point out that in the first two books the author stayed on one person, the main character, Ellie. What I mean by staying is it was all written from her point of view but still in third person. However, during the third book the author switched from around four different people's points of view, which made it even more confusing and caused me too dislike the ending even more. Ellie, an orphan, no longer lives in the orphanage but makes a living building steampunk type machines and repairing those made by her mother. She is tormented by the death of her brother plus being messy and good-hearted. Her best friend is Anna, still living in the orphanage and in charge of a motley crew of Baker Street irregulars. Seth, the boy pulled from the whale, is mysterious with no memory of his past other than his brothers and sisters are missing. It's a middle-grade novel, supposedly aimed at children from the age of 9 upwards, but I'd say the sweet spot to read this would be age 12, in my opinion (although I have just thoroughly enjoyed it myself at age 20). It's got... not exactly gore, but definite mentions of blood and guts in places. In "Orphans of the Tide" by Struan Murray we follow the story of Ellie, who has lost her whole family. She lives in a city that believes they are the last city in the world. The city lives in constant fear of The Enemy that is housed in The Vessel.

This is the third book in the Orphans of the Tide series, and an epic conclusion at that. This series revolves around the presence of the Enemy. The Enemy of a kind of God, who resides in a Vessel. He can fulfil wishes for the Vessel, but in return gains some power to do as he wishes. He can for example save someone for the Vessel, but then himself gets the power to also save, or kill, someone. And as his name suggests, he does not want to do nice things with those powers. The town is obviously terrified of this Enemy and has installed an Inquisition to find the Vessel. If you are thought to be a Vessel, you are very likely to be killed… because then the Enemy also disappears for 10 years. Feel like I could wax lyrical about this for ever. But I’ll stop. Because, to some extent, this is best come to without prior knowledge of the story.The Harry Potter Wizarding Almanac: The official magical companion to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books The Branford Boase Judges said ; ‘hard to believe this is a debut’; ‘a really exciting new voice in storytelling’; ‘the world-building is perfect, so vivid’; ‘the experience was like reading His Dark Materials for the first time’; ‘distinctive, quality writing’. The children in my class who read this book couldn’t stop telling me about it. They really were hooked from the get-go and would be desperate to talk about the plot with me at break and lunchtimes.