Sailing with the Wind of Freedom: Lascarina Bouboulis and the War for Greek Independence

Sailing with the Wind of Freedom: Lascarina Bouboulis and the War for Greek Independence is a historical novel for children and young adults inspired by a heroine of the Greek Revolution. Here is what Kirkus Reviews had to say about the book:

“…The characters are well developed, both emotionally authentic and historically grounded, and they bring the world of 19th-century Greece to life. Andreyev’s grayscale illustrations elegantly complement the text’s imagery. An engaging novel about the life of a fascinating historical legend.”

Sailing with the Wind of Freedom transports the reader to the seemingly quiet Greek island of Spetses, a remote corner of the Ottoman Empire, where dreams of freedom still lived in the hearts of the Sultan's Greek subjects.  The book opens in 1786, at a fateful moment in the life of the fifteen-year-old Lascarina Lazarou. The islanders have always been suspicious of her: no one knows who her father is, and her mother takes care to guard this secret even from her own daughter. Worse yet, they think, Lascarina is a brilliant sailor and can read and write. The lessons she learns when she competes in a hard-fought sailing race stand her in good stead all her life. She also discovers that for one young man with an independent mind, her reputation is no obstacle to friendship.  Lascarina passes into history as Bouboulina. She brings the battle for freedom to the door of the Sultan’s palace and wins help from a highly unlikely source to whom she makes a momentous promise. Using her own fortune, she builds a fleet of warships. She rallies her countrymen to wage their War for Independence in 1821 and sails into battle in her flagship. Although the novel is a fast-paced tale of adventure, it challenges young people to ponder complex themes: the importance of national self-determination, the cascade of horrors unleashed by ethnic hatred, and the limited options open to women for most of recorded history.