Rock the Boat dives for Genevieve Carver's middle-grade adventure debut

Oneworld’s Rock the Boat imprint has acquired The Ocean and the Bones, a middle-grade adventure set in the Stone Age from poet Genevieve Carver.

Senior commissioning editor Katie Jennings acquired world English language rights from Lauren Gardner at Bell Lomax Moreton. The paperback original will be published as a lead title on the Rock the Boat list on 4th June 2026.

"Friendship is tough in the Stone Age, especially when your best friend is a Water Spirit," the synopsis says. "Ever since Little Meg became Sunhealer’s Shadow, she’s been learning to understand the ways of the Spirits. So when a storm sweeps through her village, she knows they are angry. Worse still, they are angry with her for keeping back the bones she was meant to offer up to them. The bones of her dead parents."

The blurb adds: "As the rain clears, Meg discovers a girl washed up on the seashore. She speaks in a strange language and scratches pictures of distant lands in the sand. Despite the suspicious mutterings of the villagers, the pair forge an unlikely friendship. But if Meg wants to appease the Spirits and save her people, she must return the girl to her home. Their journey will take them across the wild sea, to a place that exists only in legends. But will Meg survive to tell the tale?"

Jennings said: "Genevieve Carver’s first book for children absolutely swims with adventure, magic and friendship, bringing the coastal Stone Age setting to life in such vivid detail you can almost smell the salt in the air. From our very first conversation, Gen’s passion for telling stories inspired by history and the natural world was clear. The Ocean and the Bones is exactly the sort of warm-hearted and thought-provoking book we all love to publish here at Rock the Boat and we can’t wait for readers to dive in."

Carver said: "Ten-year-old me would have loved The Ocean and the Bones for its swirling whirlpools, singing seals and ancient rituals. Writing for children has allowed me to be more expansive and imaginative in my writing than ever before, and I hope it will ignite a spark of wonder in young readers too. This is my first work of fiction, and I feel that immersing myself in Little Meg’s story has helped me to say something true. I’m excited to be working with Oneworld for two books, and so grateful to Katie and the team for understanding my lost, flawed, big-hearted characters from the beginning.”