Song of a Thousand Seas by Zana Fraillon

Title: Song of a Thousand Seas

Author: Zana Fraillon

Genre: Verse Novel

Publisher: UQP

Published: 2^nd September 2025

Format: Paperback

Pages: 96

Price: $14.99

Synopsis:  A lyrical verse novel of homecoming and friendship by Zana Fraillon, the multi-award-winning author of The Bone Sparrow and The Way of Dog.

All day long we can hear
that Sea howl prowling wild
inside our brains and every part of us is straining
to feel it taste it twirl it whirl it swirl it
inside our body
again.

Houdini the octopus lives in an aquarium, but she misses her home in the wild Sea. She doesn’t like the visitors who bang on her tank. Or the way she can’t feel the sun on her skin or the wind rippling the water. It’s a dull existence for a creature with nine brains.

Then one day she meets someone who is different to the other visitors. Juno’s busy brain buzzes with so many questions and thoughts that Houdini’s skin tingles with wonder.

But the singing of the Sea is growing stronger and harder to resist. Can Houdini make Juno understand what she needs before it’s too late?

~*~

Octopuses are amazing – they have eight legs, nine brains, and lots of suckers. Houdini, the hero of Song of a Thousand Seas by Zana Fraillon, has 3, 154 suckers on her tentacles. She lives in an aquarium where she is looked after. Yet, Houdini longs for her home, for the freedom of the sea she came from. Houdini just wants to vanish, to leave the visitors that press their noses at her, that jab the tank and who are not very curious at all. Houdini feels alone…until she meets Juno.

Houdini can sense Juno is different to the other visitors, because Juno has a busy, buzzy brain with lots of thoughts, just like Houdini’s many brains. There is a glimmer of hope with Juno. Meeting Juno triggers something within Houdini. Hope – a hope that things could change for the better. Juno is filled with ideas to help Houdini – but can she convince Paul to implement them before the singing of the Sea becomes harder for Houdini to resist?

Zana Fraillon is a master at verse novels, especially ones told using the voices of animals. Song of a Thousands Sea features an octopus whose longing for the sea ebbs and flows through the novel, whose desire to be free encapsulates how people feel trapped in so many ways in modern life. Through Houdini’s eyes, readers get to see what life in an aquarium is like. What seeing thousands of people doing the same thing every day is like, until that one person who can change things comes along. It’s a song that needs to be told in verse, one that may not have a melody but is lyrically profound and important. That has heart and humanity, that speaks to the desire to create change.

And this change can be anything. There are so many things that are always changing, or where things need to change. Where people need to take action on issues or matters that are important to them. Houdini’s life in the aquarium and the attitudes Juno comes up against can also show that sometimes, people feel powerless to create change. That wanting to is one thing. But being able to can be something else entirely, and we all need to help make any changes or work on advocacy in ways that can work for us as individuals.

But at its heart, this book is about freedom. Being able to be part of a world you feel at home in, and about being yourself, even when it feels like everything is working against you. Zana has used great research in this novel; all included at the back and talks about her research process with Sydney SEALIFE Aquarium. I think adding these facts in made the novel come to life, and show that octopuses are amazing and interesting. She really managed to get into the mind (or minds) or Houdini. This really brings the verses to life. It’s a special book, small but with big emotions and messages that show the complexities and realities of the world. And, that in the end, sometimes the smallest changes can be the most powerful of all.