The Blue Sharks

A new middle grade mystery from Coretta Scott King and Newbery Honor winner Alicia D. Williams, set during the summer of 1983, follows five Black girls who join a swim team only to find themselves investigating two mysterious drownings.

It’s the summer of 1983 in West Edenton, and five girls—Jubi, Lena, Mercy, Domonique, and Zuri—each receive mysterious invitations to attend swim team tryouts at the Charles E. Hammer Municipal Pool. None of them knows who sent the invitations or why, but they are curious enough to find out.

On the day of tryouts, the June heat hangs heavy in the air. Their coach, Patricia Moses, better known as Coach Pat, is excited to lead West Edenton’s first all-girl swim team. But before the tryouts can begin, townspeople—including Sister Marshall and her grandson—warn the girls to leave immediately. Sister Marshall believes the pool is haunted, cursed by a dark and foreboding presence. Coach Pat and the girls soon begin to fear she may be right.

It has been one year since a Black boy drowned in the pool during what should have been a joyful summer day filled with families and laughter. It has also been twenty-four years since another Black boy lost his life in the very same waters where Jubi, Lena, Mercy, Domonique, and Zuri are preparing to swim. The pool itself is said to be cursed, and while some of the girls are skeptical, Mercy and Domonique know enough about Hoodoo, haints, and ghosts to take the warnings seriously.

As the mystery surrounding the boys’ deaths deepens and long-buried truths begin to surface, the girls must rely on one another—both in and out of the pool—to uncover the truth and make themselves, and Coach Pat, proud.