Submarine+Outlaw

Submarine Outlaw by Phillip Roy
Booktalk by Christine MacLennan

Alfred has no parents. His mother died when he was born, and his father left soon after. Alfred lives with his grandparents in northern Newfoundland. He dreams of far away places and exciting adventures. His grandfather, however, expects him to be a fisherman when he grows up, just like everyone else in the small community of Dark Cove. What Alfred really wants to be is an explorer. His grandfather laughs and tells him that pretty much everything in the world had been explored, except maybe the ocean depths. Alfred is thinking about the ocean when he passes the junkyard. An angry old man called Ziegfried owns the junkyard. All the kids in town are afraid of him. Alfred loves the junkyard. Even though he too, is afraid of the owner, he spends hours looking through the chain link fence at all the neat stuff. He thinks it is a treasure hunter’s paradise. Then he sees it! It is round, black, smooth and beautiful. It is a submarine. He just had to see it up close. He crawls through a hole in the fence and creeps forward. Here is what happened.

P 4- “Halt” to page 6 “on many things”

So starts the friendship between Alfred and Ziegfried. 12-year-old Alfred spends every spare moment at the junkyard, helping Ziegfried build a submarine. Alfred is a genius with motors and mechanical things. It takes them over two years to build it. Now that Alfred is 14, his grandfather expects him to learn the fishing trade on his boat. Alfred has other ideas. He runs away from home and with Ziegfried’s help gets the submarine in the water and working. It is an amazing experience. There is however one small problem they did not think of. The submarine shows up on the Coast Guard’s radar and they think Alfred is some kind of spy submarine. Alfred knows that if they find him they will never let him continue his exploration. He just has to stay one step ahead of them! He also knows the navy might decide to shoot missiles at him. He does not care. He will take that chance.

Read page 98 – “The coastguard” to “ a whole lot faster than we are”

Does Alfred get caught? What other adventures does he have? Will he have to go back to fishing with his grandfather? What amazing thing does he discover on the ocean floor?

If you love adventure this is the book for you. Read Submarine Outlaw by Philip Roy.