Eleven-year-old Kirra has a great love for all animals as the daughter of a
widowed zoo veterinarian in Australia. But when her father is injured and must
be hospitalized for several months, Kirra is forced to go stay with her
estranged grandfather, Gus, in South Africa. Kirra doesn’t want to leave her
father’s side, especially to stay with a grandfather she barely knows in a
strange country. Arriving in South Africa, Kirra is even more disheartened to
discover that Gus is the owner of a dilapidated seaside theme park, which is
quickly losing its customers to rival park owner, Rolf.
Gus’s business is given a miraculous boost, though, when a fierce storm traps a
baby orca in his lagoon, turning his park into the area’s main attraction. The
growing orca, which Kirra names Willy, has an inhibited sense of
echolocation–the process by which whales hunt and navigate their ocean
home–making his survival in the wild apart from his pod impossible. Kirra also
realizes that the orca will outgrow the lagoon very quickly. Gus thinks his only
choice is to sell Willy to Rolf’s successful park, where the orca will be safe …
and forever captive.
With time running out, Kirra must not only locate Willy’s pod, but also find a
way to teach the young whale to survive and be free in the open sea.
