Dale S MacHaffie

Whale's Tails Dale S MacHaffie

Whale's Tails features parallel whaling tales told by four young friends who live in two different centuries. Two of the young men live in 2018, and the other two are alive in the 1850s. Both stories have meaningful and thought-provoking information for young people! College students Reggie and his friend Tom have signed on as research assistants for the summer. The research project is tagging humpback whales and tracking their travels. The boys are spending the summer on the Pacific Ocean living on a research ship. Reggie's ancestor George Page hunted whales in the 1850s when whales were killed for commercial gain. George began his sailing and whaling career at age fourteen on a British warship, where he met his friend Thomas Payne. George kept a written journal detailing his sailing experiences. Reggie reads George's journal and discovers he possesses an unusual superpower-his dreams of George's shipboard life-transports Reggie to the 1850s. He interacts with George and Thomas's harrowing encounters although he is invisible to all. Reggie lives a double life, one a virtual reality in the 1850s, the other his real one in 2018. The medium of dreams serves as a time machine that moves Reggie back and forth between centuries and influences his interactions with the whales he is following in his current research. Both sets of friends have scary adventures and learn secrets from the whales. Whale's Tails is laced with ideas, questions, concerns, mind-blowing facts, and thought-provoking situations immersing the reader in the perils that whalers and researchers face. The book illustrates how the past impacts the present and future of humans and the planet. Whale's Tails is filled with current events, environmental problems, traits and attributes of various families of whales, scientific observations, and exciting action-packed adventures.