"Emigration is a subject that is much talked about: the history of the
Portuguese people in Hawaii allowed me to write about an extremely
topical subject, through an original and surprising story." - Marco Innocenti

★ Based on a true story, a novel that goes straight to the heart.
★ Written by the highly-regarded children’s book authors Marco Innocenti.

Manuel is a thirteen-year-old boy who lives with his parents and two sisters in the Algarve in southern Portugal. It is a poor family. His father and mother work in the fields. He studies, reads a lot and dreams of a better future. One day, a letter arrives from Uncle Mario, who had emigrated to Hawaii a year earlier. Mario is doing well and invites everyone to join him. So, Manuel and his family set sail on a ship, the Orteric, loaded with over 1,500 Spanish and Portuguese migrants.

It's a great adventure for Manuel. He makes friends, plays endless games of dominoes and falls in love for the first time in his life. But the journey is long, there are two oceans and the fearsome Strait of Magellan to cross, and life on board is difficult, people are crammed like sardines and diseases spread at frightening speed.

At the end of the journey, there will be 58 deaths, most of them children. Among them, even Manuel, who will not be able to exchange his first kiss with Lara in time. But on the Orteric there was not only death but also life, because fourteen children were born during the journey.

Marco Innocenti
is a highly-regarded children’s book authors. He writes novels, short stories, comics and children’s books. His series “Capitan Fox” (“Captain Fox”) is a bestseller translated in China, South Korea, Russia and many other countries. He won Euroclub-linus prize on 2000.

Andrea Alemanno
He was born in Naples in 1984, he lived in Lecce, Taranto and Macerata. He studied fine arts at high school and at the Fine Arts Accademy of Macerata where he graduated in Theory and practice of Visual multimedial comunication and Graphic Arts with a degree about the epublishing for childrens (2009); finally he got the master of Illustrations for publishing "Ars In Fabula".

His artworks are choiced in different italian contest: "Lucca Junior" 2011 and 2012, "Illustrati", "Premio Skiaffino" 2010, "We are the future" and more. In the 2013 he has been selected in the Annual of Associazione Illustratori. He worked for different publishing houses like Lisbon Labs, La Spiga Edizioni, Blackcat Cideb, Editions Clochette and more