Ripple: The Life that Changed the Universe by Tui Allen

Description

The book was selected to represent New Zealand authors at the 2012 Frankfurt Book fair during New Zealand’s year as country of honor at the fair. It has now been translated and traditionally published as a hardcover edition in The Czech Republic. 100% of all author royalties for Ripple will be donated to the Maui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders for at least one year from 25th August 2019. Maui and Hectors dolphins are critically endangered species endemic to New Zealand. There are fewer than 70 Maui dolphins left alive. They are the world’s smallest dolphin. One of the main objectives of the Ripple story is to allow readers to confront possible consequences to humans of dolphin extinction, they might never otherwise have considered. So the author felt that the best place to send the money was to the group working so hard to prevent extinction of some of the world’s most endangered dolphins.

This important piece of metaphysical literary fiction is written for adults but is eminently suitable as a text for secondary school students, being both challenging, absorbing and informative of the ocean environment that covers most of our world.

Twenty million years ago, powers of the universe allow an ancient spirit one final chance to achieve a mysterious intellectual purpose, by incarnating it as a dolphin on the planet Azure (Earth.) The spirit is born as Ripple, a vulnerable female with a seeming tendency to insanity. She falls for the scarred fighter-dolphin Cosmo and love inspires her to achieve her purpose. But before she can communicate her discovery, she must overcome terrific odds among the terrors and tragedies of the ancient oceans. If she can succeed, the universe will change forever, and profoundly affect the yet-to-evolve human race.