Young Jenny comes to stay with her fiercely independent grandmother, who waits for a sea-borne sign from a husband drowned thirty years ago aboard the ship Amaryllis. As Jenny soon discovers, others are also transfixed by the sea's tragedies: an unloved son, a silly woman, a ghost.

The language of The Eyes of the Amaryllis is beautiful, and the story lightly treads the line between small domestic conflicts and such surreal touches as a ship sailing across the bottom of the sea and a man ceaselessly following his steps across the sand.

Jenny cracked eggs -- twelve of them, a whole dozen days of labor for some unknown, dedicated hen -- and beat their slippery whites into a rigid cloud of foam. She had beaten egg whites often before, but now she saw the process as yet another transformation. She sifted flour, measured the sugar, watched as Gran folded everything into a batter smooth and pale as thickened cream. Transformations again. And the humble dailiness of these activities only increased the knowledge that, at some undetermined point, her world had slid away a final barrier and allowed that other world to merge with it at last, like the fog moving in from nowhere, into the air she breathed, changing its flavor, giving it a richness it had not had before. Like the scent of the angel-food cake drifting out from the oven to fill the house with promises. Like the head on the parlor table. [93] ( )

A bit mystical, but that's not surprising from the author of Tuck Everlasting. Not, however, a fairy tale like The Search for Delicious. Every fan of Babbitt would enjoy it, and so likely would fans of ghost stories, mysteries, and tales of the sea. ( )

How would you react if you stood on the shore and watched helplessly while a ship carrying a loved one was dashed on the rocks within your sight, and you could do nothing to help? Would you feel closer to your lost loved one by staying in that spot? Or would the place fill you with fear and anger?

Jenny goes to spend time with her widowed grandmother in a home by the sea, and is drawn into Gram's search for a "sign" of her long-lost sea captain husband. Jenny ponders, for the first time, the possibility of things that cannot be explained. This is a gentle tale is of mystery, imagination, and family love -- and I loved it. It's set in an era of sailing ships and horses and buggies, but the themes are timeless. ( )

I must correct one other review. To be honest, it made me wonder if the reviewer had actually read the book. It is repeated over and over in the book that the ship broke up on rocks within sight of the location where the story takes place, not hundreds of miles away. It is also repeatedly mentioned that the grandmother and her son actually witnessed the sinking of the ship captained by her husband, which is why the son is so traumatized by the sea.

Also, it was obvious to my 13yo daughter that the sign the grandmother was waiting for was from her husband, a sign that their love carried beyond the grave. The story is, at its heart, a romance. It is a book about love not dying just because people do. How anyone can read the ending of the book and not get that is boggling to me.

Personally, I adored this book. It was a delight to find something on my daughter's school reading list that wasn't the typical "Death by Newbery Medal" book. The story was uplifting, and the protagonist had a coming of age that didn't involve being scarred for life. Happy endings in children's 'classics' are a rarity to be savored. ( )

Jenny Reade is sent to Cape Cod to care for her grandmother Geneva, who has broken an ankle. Jenny is completely out of her element. Years earlier her sailor grandfather was lost at sea. Because Jenny's father has never come to terms with losing his father he barely visits his mother, who has remained in their seaside house, and he has never brought Jenny to meet her grandmother. As a result Jenny has never seen the sea.
The story takes on a mystical air when Jenny's true task comes to light. She is not there to care for Geneva while she is off her feet like her father thinks. She has been summoned to watch for her grandfather's ghost ship. Geneva strongly believes that her dead husband will send her a sign from the depths of the ocean, so every night Jenny walks the beaches in search of such a sign. ( )