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From Publisher's Weekly

December 12, 2005
Ben, Cass's childhood friend from Crossing Jordan
, narrates as the two develop romantic feelings for one another. On vacation in the Keys, Ben and his younger brother go on many adventures, yet Ben's thoughts return to Cass. Ages 8-12.

From Horn Book

July 1, 2003
Narrator Ben Floyd and his family spend Christmas vacation in the Florida Keys, taking care of a marina for relatives. Ben and his younger brother meet Mica, a girl who lives on a sailboat with her heavy-drinking father. The unfocused plot is slow, but the characters--particularly the arrogant but emotionally needy Mica--are well drawn.

(Copyright 2003 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From School Library Journal

February 1, 2003
Gr 5-8-Thirteen-year-old Ben, mentioned in Crossing Jordan (Peachtree, 2000) as Cass's childhood friend, narrates this story. Here, the two are developing romantic feelings for one another, although Cass makes but a brief appearance. Ben goes with his family to the Florida Keys for Christmas to mind his uncle's marina. He meets bold and brassy Mica, 11, who lives on a boat with her alcoholic, inattentive father, a marine biologist; her mother is supposedly a famous ballerina "on The Continent." She takes over the family's holiday. She knows the Latin name for seemingly every species of ocean life, motors around the mangroves in a Zodiac, and takes Ben and his younger brother on myriad adventures, including the inevitable one where they almost get lost at sea. He continues to think of Cass, back home in Tallahassee, and the special present he left for her. Longer and slower than the earlier title, and not as compelling, this book has trouble finding a focus as it is partly about child neglect, sibling rivalry, and oceanography, and is also a coming-of-age story.-Debbie Whitbeck, West Ottawa Public Schools, Holland, MI

Copyright 2003 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

From Booklist

February 1, 2003
Gr. 5-8. Thirteen-year-old Ben Floyd and his seven-year-old brother, Cody, can't wait to spend Christmas in the Florida Keys as their parents watch over a family-run marina. Ben knows he'll have to keep an eye on Cody, who can't swim, but he's not prepared when a marine biologist and his 11-year-old daughter, Mica, dock and settle in for the holidays: "My big vacation began to fold up small." Initially, Ben envies Mica's freedom (correspondence school, island hopping, and helping her father collect specimens), and he resents how easily his parents embrace her. Gradually, however, he realizes that Mica, with her distant, hard-drinking father, yearns for a loving family like his own. As in Fogelin's previous novels, "Crossing Jordan "(2000) and "Anna Casey's Place in the World "(2001), this story has plenty of action, but it's the emotional drama, revealed in funny, realistic dialogue and spot-on descriptions, that distinguish the novel. Readers just leaping into adolescence will easily connect with Ben, who is both sharply observant of and bewildered by the adult world and his own place in it. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)