Tight Lines by Louise Lambeth

Title: Tight Lines

Author: Louise Lambeth

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: Deep Water Publishing

Published: November 2023

Format: Paperback

Pages: 168

Price: $15.00

Synopsis: Roy is sick of being targeted by the school bully. He vows to beat the bully by winning the fishing competition, but… first he needs to ask his big brother Jack to teach him how to fish.

Reviewed by Surf Life Saving Australia this book will help children learn how to be safe when fishing and especially when fishing from rocks.

Tight Lines has adventure, challenges to overcome, ecology, mystery, a rescue, a recipe and a whole lot more!

There’s a quiz in the back of the book with questions for you to ponder.

Here are some answers to consider…. you may also have your own!

Available from: Louise Lambeth

~*~

Water safety is a very important issue in Australia. With all the beaches around our coast, and Australian’s love for various water sports like sailing, fishing, and swimming, there are so many water safety messages to learn, and all of them important. From a young age, children are taught to stay between the flags when swimming at the beach, and raise your hand if you get in trouble, and not to fight against a rip. Water safety when fishing is important too, from wearing the right gear to knowing about tides, and what to do when you get in trouble. And that’s where Louise Lambeth, a local Central Coast lifesaver and author comes in. She writes books for children featuring water safety messaging, advice and advocacy to help prevent search and rescues becoming search and recovery missions. With so many Australians and visitors to Australia enjoying our waterways each summer, these messages need to be communicated effectively.

Louise’s latest book for middle grade readers is Tight Lines, a story about fishing and water safety, and like her other books, is supported and reviewed by Surf Life Saving Australia, as her story is filled with illustrations and boxes, and facts about staying safe whilst fishing from the beach, a jetty, and rocks. Roy is twelve, and about to head to high school, and he has one last chance whilst at primary school to show the school bully, Bryce Stark, that he isn’t afraid of him. Roy asks his older brother to help him, and this is where the safety lessons come into play as well as the advice about fishing, legal sizes, and what anglers have to know when they go fishing and what fishing gear they need. As the story progresses, Roy and the reader start to learn more about water safety whilst fishing, so readers are learning an important message whilst they are having fun.

Roy has never shown much interest in sports until now, so learning new skills and hobbies, as well as new knowledge is at the heart of Tight Lines, and readers unfamiliar with waterways and fishing will learn something too. Reading this book showed me that collaboration and communication is a crucial element when it comes to using the waterways in Australia to help promote and maintain water safety standards to avoid more people drowning each year, which is why our Surf Life Savers like Louise are so important to local beach communities. Learning these lessons through books, in school, visits to the beach, Nippers, and swimming lessons is valuable – and an important part of life in Australia, especially if you live by the coast or intend to spend a lot of time at the beach. To me, this book communicated beach and water safety messages effectively through the way Roy and Jack navigated the fishing competition, whilst also teaching readers about angling, what legal sizes are, and what to do when a fish isn’t legal size. Books like this that incorporate teaching readers something with a fun story are, I think, a brilliant way to learn. They make topics and subjects that some people may not enjoy interesting and engaging, and even if someone doesn’t take up the hobby, they have at least learnt something new they can use at trivia nights or to understand the waterways better.

This is a wonderful story for middle grade readers from a fabulous local author. Everything is fun but the hint of danger ad warnings are still there, bubbling away in the background, because the water isn’t always safe or predictable. This story shows that we need to respect the waterways and tides, the fish and the beaches, and not do things because we think it looks cool without thinking about safety. I found that I enjoyed this book as a story about two siblings enjoying a shared interest and hobby as the younger brother prepared to enter high school with his older brother the next year after summer.  I hope that this book is read widely, to educate and entertain readers of all ages, because books like this can be important tools in education and safety as well as keeping your young reader entertained with a fun adventure by the beach.