Part 2
The Wanderer works her way north to Grand Manan, an island in a stretch of sea famous for having some of the highest tides in the world — water that can rise and fall dozens of feet in a single day. The crew learns the hard way to respect those tides: they run the boat aground in the shallows near Wood Island, and can do nothing but wait, tilted and stuck, until the sea returns to lift them free. Thick fog rolls in and out, hiding the shore. In the quiet of the island days, Sophie keeps telling Bompie’s stories — this time a tale of a river baptism in which young Bompie is dunked underwater and comes up sputtering — and again the family marvels that she knows it at all. Something else is stirring in Sophie: fleeting images of a ‘little kid,’ and a strange, wordless feeling that she has been near deep water like this before. Brian and Cody bicker; Dock grows quiet whenever a certain name comes up. The island stretch is a pause before the real ocean, and it leaves Sophie both steadier and more haunted.
| Section | What you will practice |
|---|---|
| Vocabulary | Tide-and-island words: tide, current, aground, fog, baptism… |
| Literary Elements | Setting as a force, the water motif, and a mystery deepening |
| Cross-Curricular | Tides and the sea — how the moon pulls the ocean up and down |
| Ch. | What happens |
|---|---|
| Chapters 15–18 | Grand Manan and the Tides — the crew reaches the island, runs aground in shallow water, and waits for the huge tide to float them free while fog drifts over the shore. |
| Chapters 19–22 | The Baptism Story — Sophie tells a Bompie tale of a river baptism, images of a ‘little kid’ flicker in her mind, and Dock falls quiet at the mention of a name. |
Part 2’s words are ruled by water: a tide and its current that leave the boat aground, a fog that hides the shore, and a river baptism in one of Bompie’s stories. The high tides that catch the Wanderer at Grand Manan are not magic but gravity. The moon’s pull tugs the ocean toward it, heaping the water into a slow bulge; as the Earth turns, that bulge sweeps around the planet, so most coasts see the sea rise to a high tide and sink to a low tide about twice a day. The sun pulls too, and when sun and moon line up, the tides grow especially large. In most places the change is a few feet, but in narrow, funnel-shaped bays — like the Bay of Fundy near Grand Manan — the incoming water is squeezed until it climbs dozens of feet, the highest tides on Earth.
Their distinctions create a more exact shade of nuance.
ⓘ The vocabulary words in this list are selected to help you understand and complete this workbook. Some may not appear verbatim in the original novel.
The narrative traces the pause at Grand Manan: the huge tides that strand the boat, the fog that hides the shore, a baptism story from Bompie’s past, and the first flickers of a ‘little kid’ in Sophie’s mind. Chapters 15–18: Grand Manan and the Tides — the crew reaches the island, runs aground in shallow water, and waits for the huge tide to float them free while fog drifts over the shore. Chapters 19–22: The Baptism Story — Sophie tells a Bompie tale of a river baptism, images of a ‘little kid’ flicker in her mind, and Dock falls quiet at the mention of a name. The Wanderer works her way north to Grand Manan, an island in a stretch of sea famous for having some of the highest tides in the world — water that can rise and fall dozens of feet in a single day.
That connection reveals the plot’s central causation.
- Sophie tells the baptism story about Bompie.
- The crew misjudges the tide and runs aground.
- Images of a ‘little kid’ flicker in Sophie’s mind.
- They wait, stuck, for the water to rise.
- The Wanderer reaches Grand Manan island.
Part 2 leans on three tools: a place that shapes the action (setting), a repeated image that gathers meaning (the water motif), and a slower pace that lets feelings surface (pacing). By now a pattern is impossible to miss: water keeps returning. The boat’s name is Wanderer; the tides rule the island; and the Bompie story Sophie tells is a baptism — a boy plunged underwater and hauled back up. This repeated image of falling into water and being rescued is a motif, a detail that recurs until it gathers meaning. Every Bompie tale ends the same way, with water and a rescue, and Sophie is drawn to the sea even as it unsettles her. Creech is building this motif deliberately, brick by brick, so that when its true meaning finally breaks open, the reader will feel the whole book has been pointing here all along.
Concrete detail makes the scene vivid through imagery.
The episode demonstrates how the island stretch works as more than a backdrop — here the setting acts almost like a character with a will of its own. The tide grabs the boat and pins it; the fog blinds the crew; the island decides when they may leave. Creech slows the whole book down on purpose, trading the rush of open water for a held breath. With nothing to do but wait, Sophie turns inward, and the images of a ‘little kid’ begin to surface. The setting is not just where the story happens; it presses on the characters and squeezes their hidden feelings up toward the light. The narrative reveals how often, in this book, the water itself seems to be doing the storytelling.
The choice carries both freedom and responsibility.
Imagine the boat tilted over on the mud at low tide, going nowhere. The great bay has simply walked away and left the Wanderer leaning in the shallows, and there is nothing for the crew to do but wait for the water to come striding back. Fog closes around them, soft and white, until the island is only a rumor. In that hush a girl sits on deck and tells a story about a boy long ago who was dipped under a river and hauled up gasping — a story she should have no way of knowing. And behind her eyes, unbidden, a small child appears, standing near water, and a feeling she cannot name rises in her chest like the tide itself. The sea will lift the boat by evening. What it is lifting in Sophie will take much longer.
The huge tides that trap the Wanderer at Grand Manan are caused by something far away: the moon. The moon’s gravity gently pulls on the Earth’s oceans, heaping the water into a slow bulge on the side facing it. As the Earth spins beneath that bulge, most coastlines rise to a high tide and sink to a low tide roughly twice each day. The sun’s gravity adds a smaller pull of its own, and when the sun and moon line up, the tides swell larger than usual. In most places the sea only climbs a few feet, so people barely notice; a boat that floated at noon still floats at midnight.
But the shape of the coast can make the tide far more dramatic. In a long, narrowing bay, the incoming water is funneled into a smaller and smaller space until it has nowhere to go but up. The Bay of Fundy, near Grand Manan, is shaped exactly this way, and there the tide can rise and fall dozens of feet — the greatest tidal range on Earth. Such tides also create powerful currents, moving rivers of water that can sweep a boat sideways faster than the wind drives it forward. A sailor who forgets the tide may float in at high water and then find the sea has simply drained away, leaving the boat aground on mud until the water returns. Reading the tide, the crew learns, is as vital as reading the wind.
This writing task is optional and is not part of your auto-graded score. The feedback below checks only the basics — length, spelling, and grammar — not whether your ideas are right or wrong. It is meant for classroom discussion and creative practice, so feel free to use your imagination!
Writing Task — Part 2 “Waiting for the Tide”
The crew can do nothing but wait for the sea to return and free their boat. Write about a time you had to wait for something you could not control — a result, a person, a change — and could only be patient. What was the waiting like, and what did you think about while you waited? 6–10 sentences. End with what finally happened, or what the waiting taught you.
No right or wrong — close the screen and tell someone nearby what happened in this part. Can’t find anyone? Tell yourself out loud. The moment you teach it, you truly understand it.
Part 2 Complete!
You finished Chapters 15–22 of The Wanderer.
Here are your auto-graded results:
Your writing was checked automatically for length, spelling, grammar, and whether you included the key parts of the scene. Scroll back to Part 5 anytime to read your feedback and improve your work.
Independent study guide by Garden Heights. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Sharon Creech. Contains original analysis only; no text from the novel is reproduced. Reference text: This workbook follows Sharon Creech’s classic text (the standard Puffin edition sold worldwide). Revised 2023 UK editions change some wording and may not match the vocabulary studied here.