Sea Never Dry

Sea Never Dry is an adaptation (for 4-7 year-olds) of the extraordinary book Tofi's Fire Dance. Nii, a young boy from the West Coast of Africa stows away on a ship to the land of dreams, The United States of America. He is thrown away to sharks for breakfast because he does not look like the crew of the ship. Protected by a mysterious rainbow fish, he washes up on the shore of the South Coast of the Zulu Kingdom. After a misunderstanding over language and culture, he is accepted into the cattle herding community. He teaches them how to fish because "Sea never dry". They teach him about cows because "Cattle is wealth." When Nii has to go home to find his parents after a long stay, Tofi, the girl who hosted him, fights for his return. She is compelled to go on a pulsating search for the magical rainbow fish, and has to dance in fire. The language and its adapted version is rich. The author chooses his words with the carefulness of a surgeon between whose fingers dangles the scalpel upon a human heart. Each line is pregnant with meaning. Each sentence is clothed in poetic beauty.