I row back, thinking what it means to be born a whaler. I think about explorers, and about Blackborrow who is an explorer even though he hasn’t been born to it. Maybe, maybe I can be an explorer? And the way to do it is to stow away … Eleven-year-old thor is the lowest of the low at a subantarctic whaling station. As a whaler’s boy, he spends long, hard days loading coal. He should be looking forward to being a harpooner on the whaling boats - but he really wants to be soaring high and free with the albatrosses. Until the day a ghostly ship emerges from the mists. It is Endurance, carrying Shackleton and his intrepid explorers on their voyage of discovery to the Antarctic. thor has never seen anything like her, and when he is caught up in the expedition’s fight for survival, he must decide where his future lies. Janice Marriott is a well-known children’s fiction and non-fiction writer, living in Wellington. Her recent books include the Yates Gardening for Kids series and Soldier in the Yellow Socks: Charles Upham, Our Finest Fighting Soldier.