The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan (review)

In this verse novel, Kasienka and her mother emigrate from Poland to England in search of Kasienka's father. Because of her weak English skills, Kasienka is put in sixth grade instead of seventh where she belongs, and because she is white among a community of brown and black immigrants, she is ostracized from the start and even actively bullied when she is moved to her rightful grade. When she learns of her father's address, she seeks him out without telling her mother; when she finds him happily settled in a relationship with a kind woman and a new baby, her sadness is overtaken by anger. Meanwhile, though, she has attracted the attention of William, a boy she met at the community swimming pool; he encourages her to go out for the swim team and stand up for herself, and his kisses and attention, combined with the friendship of a Muslim girl and Kasienka's success as a swimmer, enable her to gain perspective on her own situation as well as her relationship with her estranged parents. The verse form highlights Kasienka's emotional arc through the events that shape it; sharply observed, imagistic impressions of her first days in her new home and in school give way to more nuanced depictions of her feelings as she suffers her classmates' bullying and tramps through the streets looking for her father. The most affecting poems are the ones where she talks about William; the exhale of the "w" sound mirrors her letting go of her repressed anger and fear in favor of balance in and out of the water. Her closing insight, "I know when to come up for air,/ When to keep my head down," is therefore more than a technique for mastering the butterfly stroke. Pair this with Applegate's Home of the Brave (BCCB 2/08) and Tan's The Arrival (BCCB 1/08) for a revelatory and many-sided discussion of the emotional aspects of immigration.