The Last Mapmaker, Christina Soontornvat
Sudsai Mudawan, called Sai, is 12 years old. Her father, Mud, is a ne’er do well, a con man. She is the main breadwinner of the family. Every single day, she throws off her rags, changes into clothes she has hidden away, and pretends to be someone with a proud lineage, in order to get a better job and earn a bit more money. There is a caste system which keeps her down in her homeland. She tells white lies to enable her to survive.
Luckily, she has acquired a job working for the esteemed mapmaker, Paiyoon Wongyai. He teaches her many things, and he soon discovers that Sai has a special skill. She is an extraordinary artist and can reproduce anything she sees or imagines with expertise that is remarkable and rare. When the Queen of the Mangkon kingdom sets up an expedition to discover more land, the elderly mapmaker begs to go, but because he has a tremor, he can no longer draw his own maps. He asks Sai to go on the expedition with him, to be his assistant and secret artist.
Sai has been saving to escape from the burdens of her father and his friend Catfish, who squander all that she earns and devise wicked schemes to get rich. They demand that she help them to commit their crimes. She is forced to forge documents and steal to save her father from his own illicit behavior. With all of his faults, she still loves her father. Each time, he promises her that this criminal escapade will be the last, but he fails to reform. So when offered the opportunity to leave An Lung, she eagerly accepts and makes secret plans to leave without telling her father. The mapmaker warns her that the expedition may be very dangerous. She may not return for a year or more, or ever. In addition to new species, they are going to look for the mythical Sunderlands, which he does not tell her. They all fear the Sunderlands. Are the stories about it simply legends or are they true? Is there a huge dragon patrolling its borders. Are the winds and waves that the ships must endure to get there so dangerous, none will survive?
The mapmaker, the captain, the sailors, the stowaway, Grebe, her father too, all have their own secrets.
Captain Sangra, who leads this ship’s voyage, belongs to the royal family. She, against tradition, has chosen a path that is not idle. Her close friend, Rian, a war hero with a secret of her own, has come along with her. The voyage is filled with adventure and danger. Sai discovers that the need to acquire more and the choices one makes, can sometimes lead to disastrous consequences. She learns that people are killing certain creatures for sport. Avarice is destroying the environment. Her employer, the mapmaker, is filled with guilt for his part in the process of what the Queen would consider growth and discovery.
The story is filled with dangerous escapades and lessons about live. Jealousy is common in a place where some in the population are considered to be “less than” others and have an upward battle that they can never win. Greed creates an environment slowly being drained of its resources. People are forced to live under the thumb of a ruler preoccupied with power. While Loyalty is to be admired, it is often ignored in favor of selfishness. The idea of trust is put to the test in this story. There is an acceptance of criminal behavior in order to survive, although it is not accepted simply as an occupation, due to laziness or immorality. So, Mud and Catfish are deplored for their behavior, but Bo, a foul-mouthed pickpocket, is ultimately not judged for his, nor is Sai for the fraud she is guilty of committing with her crimes of forgery.
The book is, after all, about injustice, which is never quite overcome. There is hope, however, that right makes might. In the end, those who have helped to create the problems, unknowingly, like the mapmaker who realizes that his maps have led unscrupulous people to rob not only the people that are conquered, but also the environment of its precious resources, and Sai, who is training to be a master mapmaker, but whose past choices have led to a great deal of hardship and destruction, and Sangra, the captain, whose royal family keeps those less powerful from being the best they can be, do their best to ensure that future expeditions and rulers do less harm so their world becomes a better place in which to live. This middle grade novel lets the reader know that the very young and the very old, the very rich and the very poor, the very powerful and the very weak, all have a voice that can be used for the good of the people.