Book Nook: Girl Sailing Aboard the Western Star

The year is 1979, and 12-year-old Annie’s life has been upended. Her parents have announced that their home for the next nine months will be a 53-foot sailboat in the Atlantic Ocean. The thought of leaving behind her pets, friends and a life she loves—plus coexisting in close quarters with her older brother—has left Annie spiraling through a kaleidoscope of emotions. Heartbroken at first, Annie turns to writing, and through her detailed journal of daily life aboard the Western Star, she reveals a remarkable transformation.
Girl Sailing Aboard the Western Star is the engaging, poignant result of Annie’s chronicle of her family’s adventures in the Atlantic. Readers get to experience through Annie’s eyes the raw, unfiltered angst of a girl on the cusp of being a teenager, as she grapples with feelings of isolation, resentment and uncertainty. Page after page, hints of new awakenings rise to the surface, as Annie learns how to trim the sheet, raise the main sail and navigate using a sextant. She also learns about the stars and constellations and about the amazing creatures living under the boat. The journal takes readers along as she snorkels, scuba dives and jet skis her way through The Bahamas, the Caribbean and the Virgin Islands.
Drawn directly from Anderson’s real-life story of living on a sailboat with her family, this charming coming-of-age tale shares Annie’s day-by-day emotional evolution, as she discovers new worlds above and below the deep blue sea and lives the adventures of a lifetime.

I had a chance to interview the author to learn more.
Why did you write this book?
Living on the Western Star was a unique experience during a time when life felt pretty upside down. When I rediscovered my teenage journal, I decided it was time to embrace it and share the story with others. Learning how to cope with change, I evolved and faced the world beyond farms and horses while falling in love with the sea. This book shares my experiences and inner thoughts and shows my readers there is so much more to this world of ours than our own backyards.
What lessons can readers learn from reading this book?
Don’t be afraid to seek adventure and discover new things. Make the most out of opportunities given to you. Learn from where ever you are, with whatever you have in front of you. I didn’t learn much from my schoolbooks that year. I learned from the ocean, the weather, the sky, and all of the creatures under the boat. The biggest lesson is that you are braver than you ever knew possible.
What surprised you the most about this story?
Two things actually! When I was revising the journal to turn it into a book, I was surprised by how much I remembered about living on the Western Star—it was like being transported back to that time. And then after my parents read Girl Sailing Aboard the Western Star, they said it made them feel like they were reliving the trip and they loved seeing that through my young eyes.

Author RA Anderson is a wanderer who has lived all over, from California to Belize, and currently, home is a town called Rome, in Georgia that is! She grew up on horseback and sailboats—“the most amazing way to grow up!”

A lifelong passion for creative writing and photography became her life. Her award-winning photographs have been featured in table books, magazines and front-page news, and her writing has been published in magazines, poetry books and children’s books. Her children’s series include If Pets Could Talk and Iceland: The Puffin Explorers.

Three boys—her heart and soul—call her Mom. She and her husband—whom she calls her “strength and passion”—are recent empty-nesters, leaving them more time to travel.

For more information, please visit ra-anderson.com, or connect with her on social media at https://www.facebook.com/raAndersonAuthor/; @ra_anderson_author Instagram; @aruthanne Twitter.