Song for a Whale

2019·17.74 MB·english

by  Kelly

ALSO BY LYNNE KELLY
Chained

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by Lynne Kelly
Cover and interior art copyright © 2019 by Leo Nickolls
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint
of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC,
New York.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of
Penguin Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kelly, Lynne, author.
Title: Song for a whale / Lynne Kelly.
Description: First edition. | New York : Delacorte Press, 2018. | Summary: Twelve-
year-old Iris and her grandmother, both deaf, drive from Texas to Alaska armed
with Iris’s plan to help Blue-55, a whale unable to communicate with other whales.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018006061 | ISBN 978-1-5247-7023-5 (hc) | ISBN 978-1-5247-
7024-2 (glb) | ISBN 978-1-5247-7025-9 (ebook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Deaf—Fiction. | Whales—Fiction. | Automobile travel—Fiction. |
Grandmothers—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.K29639 Son 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
Ebook ISBN 9781524770259
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the
right to read
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Contents
Cover
Also by Lynne Kelly
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Author’s Note
Deafness & Sign Language
How to Sign Song for a Whale
Acknowledgments
About the Author
For everyone who’s ever felt alone

Until last summer I thought the only thing I had in common with
that whale on the beach was a name.
I sat with Grandpa after collecting shells and driftwood scattered
along the shore, and wildflowers from the dunes. The shells and
driftwood were for Grandma, and the flowers were for the whale.
Grandpa had asked how school was going, and I told him it was the
same, which wasn’t good. I’d been at that school for two years and
still felt like the new kid.
Grandpa patted the sand next to him. “Did you know she was
probably deaf too?” he signed.
I didn’t have to ask who he meant. The whale had been buried
there for eleven years, and my parents had told me enough times
about what happened that day.
I shook my head. I hadn’t known that, and I didn’t know why
Grandpa was changing the subject. Maybe he didn’t know what to
tell me anymore about school.
The whale had beached herself the same day I was born. When she
was spotted in the shallow waters of the Gulf, some people stood on